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Losing a child … the deepest cut of all

BY TERESA MALLAM

She is not homeless anymore.

Today is the last time I will see my beautiful daughter Leah living out her life on this Earth.

Such as it was.

Leah died, aged 45, Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025. This was to have been a brand new year, a fresh start, after years of torment, trouble, and tears. Now that hope is gone.

My only comfort is my belief that my only child is finally at peace, no more demons screaming in her brain. They have been silenced.

Last month during a hospital stay, my daughter was diagnosed with schizophrenia. At various times, I was told she had bipolar disorder, clinical depression or anxiety disorder.

She did not fit any textbook definition.

And it was only after a December 2018 car crash that she began showing signs of bizarre behavior. She got it in her head that I’d died in the accident. And so I was no longer her mother and friend but an imposter living in her mother’s house. Finally she came to believe I had survived but it took many months of convincing and even now I wonder if she was just pretending to know me.

Last Friday, Leah was found unresponsive in an alley in Quesnel across the road from where she lived in temporary housing. She was on a wait list for permanent housing in Prince George. But instead of being safe and warm in a new place, she was lying in a hospital emergency bed, as a trauma team worked hard to warm her body and bring her back to life.

Hours later, Leah was air ambulanced to Prince George. She was pronounced dead a few days later, having never regained consciousness. Leah died of natural causes, a blood clot to the lungs.

I’ve often heard and been told in my interviews with grieving parents, that only a parent who has lost a child can understand this kind of pain. This indescribable, knife to the heart, unbearable pain. There really are no words. That much is true. I have come to believe that.

However, I came close to finding meaningful words of comfort, song lyrics actually, when a nurse in ICU suggested we put on some music for Leah. And the first song to play was Bob Seger’s (Running) Against the Wind. And I thought, yes, that is how she lived her life.

My mother and I were close when I was growing up. So whenever I was having crying fits or suffering angst about some perceived crisis or other, she would soothe me with these words: “Remember, my darling, God only gives us as much as we can bear.” Turns out that’s a big, fat lie. An untruth. And I wonder what bargain bin, self-help, pseudo- psychology, dog-eared book with pages of ‘soothing words for parents’ she got that from. Certainly not from the Bible, that’s for sure.

What Paul really said is: “God is faithful and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13.

My mother was a journalist, columnist and a newspaper reporter, like me. And so she must have known the rule, the risk, and to be careful taking words out of context. But she did. To comfort me. And give me hope.

In the scriptures, however, all that God actually promised us was a way out. While waiting for the Critical Care air ambulance to arrive, a nurse handed me two bags of Leah’s personal belongings. Today I looked inside them and there was a dog-eared, palm-sized, religious pamphlet titled: Finding the Hope — It’s waiting For You.

Teresa Mallam is an award-winning journalist. She won the Jack Webster Award of Distinction, BC Law Society Award for Excellence in Legal Reporting, the Canadian Authors Association award for Best Investigative Journalism and numerous newspaper awards.

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