Mourning Has Broken

by Erin Davis

  Even over the phone, Mike and I picked up our easy partnership just where we’d left it that horrible morning during a remote broadcast in Jamaica, and it felt as natural as putting my lanyard around my neck for work again. I could sense a safety, a warmth and a certain spot where I could be vulnerable, even as I shook with nervousness over stepping back into my public life. It became clear to me during that phone call that this was where I needed to be: with Mike, our on-air team and our radio listeners. I would go back “home” again because I had a job to do: healing myself and maybe even showing what is possible with enough support and strength. Laughter was going to be a huge part of that, and Rob and I began to look at possible dates. We settled on June 11.

  I wrote and posted a journal entry on my website so that CHFI listeners, and whoever else might wish to know, could understand why I chose that particular day to go back to the studio and my friends, where I was welcomed with the type of group hug usually reserved for a pitcher who’s just thrown a no-hitter. Why June 11? I guess the better question, to Rob and me, was: If not that day, then when?

  A dear family friend suggested I stay away from work until we’d made our way through this sea of grief and disbelief. But the truth was simple: we’d never be completely through it.

  There are days, as one listener so wisely put it, that the waves of sadness threaten to take you under. But there are others on which they just gently lap at your feet. By the time I was ready to return to work, the lapping waters had outnumbered the tidal waves.

  I wrote in my journal that I was also almost out of ways to express our gratitude for the support and vast kindness that readers and listeners sent our way: to Rob and me, to Phil and Colin and to our hobbled families. In direct opposition to the worst moments of that month, the outpouring of emotion that was conveyed to us all was something I never imagined possible.

  And yet, when we needed it most, readers and listeners were there for us with a gentle word (or an expression of not being able to find the words at all), a soothing card, an email, a post.

  I concluded:

  I don’t think we would be stepping slowly into this place of peace in our hearts today if not for you.

  So today I’ll be back with you and with my friends at CHFI, an incredible team that has given us so much love and such heartfelt concern for our well-being. I cannot imagine working at any other place and being treated this way.

  More than once, Rob and I have said that we are grateful that if this had to happen—and we still don’t know why—it is at a time when we’re enveloped by love and sympathy.

  Don’t be surprised to hear us laughing today. My soul needs this place of friendly escape and welcome distraction. Despite the fact that our world has lost so much of its meaning, there is still more to do and laughter will play a large role in the way we move on from here.

  I’ll say it again: we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I hope you take these words to yours, because we will never forget the many hands that reached down to help us back to our feet. There may still be stumbles and I may reach for your hand again along the way. But knowing you are there makes every day a little easier.

  Why today? It’s June 11th. One month ago today, our dear Lauren didn’t wake up. On this day, her little Coconut, our sweet Colin, turns eight months old. And my father marks his 82nd birthday in good health and spirits. That’s why June 11th feels . . . right.

  This is for Lauren. It always will be.

  There were moments that first day back at the microphone that I teared up, my voice lacking the enthusiasm of a chipper upper range that I couldn’t imagine hitting ever again. At the end of that first show and several thereafter, I felt like a scuba diver whose tanks had run out of air and who was just barely making it to the surface. Yet every day, I was able to expand my lungs a little more. To breathe and laugh and have some semblance of normalcy for just four hours a day. The sense of routine that accompanied my return to my well-worn studio chair only served to emphasize the contrast between the relative steadiness of my work life and the absolute tumult of life at home, where it was obvious that nothing was ever going to be the same as it was before we left on that listeners’ trip in May.

  Although I’ve done it over and over (and will again at the end of this book; I hope you’ll read the acknowledgements), I can’t begin to thank the closely knit team I worked with during those extremely difficult days. My partner, Mike, deftly navigated the dip-filled dance between tears and laughter as beautifully and naturally as it could possibly have been executed. Just as we had always done, we alternated between the serious and the ridiculous, and although people knew I was hurting—as we all were in that room, and in some offices down the hall—there was also a great amount of joy and comfort going into the microphones and coming out of that studio. And, as usual, what comes from the heart goes to the heart.

  The reaction from our radio audience was nothing short of incredible. With few exceptions (and, oh, there was one big, awful one, as you’ll read later), people were reaching out to offer their support as I tried to climb back into my public life. Few emails touched me as deeply as this one from listener Tracey Morse, written after that first day back. It left me in tears.

  Dear Erin,

  I have been wanting to send an email for a month now, but simply couldn’t come up with the right words or a beautiful saying to help you during your darkest hours. I would like to share with you what the passing of your beautiful daughter has taught me.

  Over the past month, I have learned that you can mourn deeply for someone you never met. That you can cry endless tears and feel an amount of empathy you never thought possible. I have learned that in this busy, crazy, huge city of ours, people are kind and when one listener pulled her car over off the highway to cry when she heard of Lauren’s death, strangers pulled over to ask if she was ok and cried with her when they heard the news. I have learned that the wonderful people on the radio that entertain us on our way to work are much more than that, they become an important part of our day and lives. I have learned that in a day and age when we think everyone is self-consumed, people took the time to donate blood because it was something Lauren was passionate about. I have learned that through tragedy and loss, the goodness in people comes out!

  This morning, I learned that hearing a familiar voice on the radio could warm my heart and make me as happy as having a cup of coffee with an old friend.

  Love to you, Rob, Phil and baby Colin,

  Tracey

  That beautiful email told me that coming back and simply continuing to do the show was the right thing to do, even if my scars were audible at times.

  As for Rob, he was also comforted by the return to some semblance of order in our lives: walking his wife and our two little dogs to the nearby radio station at 4:45 a.m. and then, after kissing me goodbye at the door, continuing on his trek with the pups. He relished the quiet time at home to exercise, do paperwork and take care of chores that didn’t involve me. But he always had the radio on, laughing along with our friends in the studio and making sure I was on solid emotional ground. I could sense his support for me in knowing that he was listening, going about his routine, just as he knew that when I got home—collapsing on the couch, exhausted from the steady and often hectic pace of putting on a normal show when everything was just so raw and new—I’d be making sure he was doing all right too.

  There were the occasional moments when my voice would crack and my emotions would bubble up through the crevices to the surface. We would put listeners on the air and they would kindly take the opportunity to offer me their condolences. That was never difficult or the least bit awkward for me, and I was always grateful for their kindness. I can only hope that those messages didn’t serve to bring other listeners down. After all, this was supposed to be “show business,” and the purpose of my being there was to help our team wake listeners with a smile. I would hate (as would Lauren) the thought that we were anything but a source of lightness and enj
oyment, even in those early days after my return. But I suppose when reality creeps in, the accompanying feelings are inevitable, no matter how hard we try to keep them at bay.

  In a show that played all of the adult contemporary hits—ranging in tempo and angst from the lighter-than-air Bruno Mars and “Uptown Funk” to the bitterly broken-up Christina Perri and “Jar of Hearts”—my musical Achilles heel was most definitely Adele. It was in January of 2016, on the first listener trip that followed the fateful one the previous May, and (what else?) an early morning. I was practically propped up in my chair, doing the show after a night that was not spent sleeping; I’d suffered a bout of food poisoning and was literally “tired and emotional,” a euphemism often used to describe celebrities who are drunk in public. But, oh, it was not booze but food that had taken me down, and I’ve no idea what it was. I’d never had any troubles in Mexico—or on any of our listener trips—from food. But as (bad) luck would have it, this time I was knocked sideways.

  When I tried to talk at the end of Adele’s “When We Were Young,” I found my voice starting to catch, and for a moment, I could have been in the opening credits of Mad Men, tumbling helplessly and out of control. It felt as if I was just going to lose it completely and flat-out sob on the air—and, to make matters worse, do it right in front of a live group of listeners who had joined us for the show. I was too sick and too tired to get a grip on my emotions or my words: “I’m sorry,” I choked out, “it’s just . . . so awful.” By awful I didn’t mean the song; I meant losing control—the pain that the song brought out with its lyrics about the fleeting nature of youth and of life itself. Fortunately, moments like that were few. (Thanks, Adele!)

  The holidays in 2015 were a particularly hard six weeks. To the delight of many (as reflected in our ratings at that time of year), we programmed wall-to-wall Christmas music at CHFI from the day of the Santa Claus Parade in mid-November, and I knew some songs would absolutely prove to be emotional triggers. Josh Groban, with whom I had a friendly relationship from his many visits to Toronto, took me down hard with his version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” I rushed out of the studio as it played through the speakers one morning, brushing past my boss and our senior producer, and headed for an empty office to sob. And then, two minutes later . . . back into the studio, on with the show, being “on my best” once again.

  I’ve no doubt it was hard for listeners to imagine me putting on a smile for that period of festive tunes, especially when a contest we aired every day shone a spotlight on people’s hardships. For “Pay It Forward,” we asked listeners to send us an email about someone they knew who needed an all-inclusive trip for two to a luxury resort. During the holiday season, we drew winners from the many submissions we received. The stories were often as heartwarming as they were heart-wrenching, with winners dealing with their own grief, serious illnesses and other life challenges. There were happy stories as well: daughters who wanted to thank their dads for always being there; sons who entered their moms in appreciation for their solo-parenting. Through the congratulatory phone calls, as nominators shared news of the win with their nominees, our participants would often take a moment to offer me condolences. It cannot have been easy for listeners to be brought back to the sad reality of my family’s life, and even though I appreciated every word of kindness, I was and am sorry if it caused anyone to feel sadness for us.

  In the year and a half that I continued to do mornings following Lauren’s death, I learned that people were always going to hear me through certain filters. Mind you, this was not a new concept; many were the times I would be called or emailed (or even written a letter, way back when) when a listener thought they heard me say something a certain way or with a particular “tone” or, in some cases, using words I absolutely did not use. Experiences like those led me to the conclusion that “I cannot be responsible for what you hear, only what I say.”

  It’s that kind of perception—or even projection—that would have people saying that I just sounded “sad,” even on days when I was not and was, in fact, having a particularly up or light-spirited morning. For some, the concept of me actually feeling good enough to laugh and have fun on the radio was just too much to comprehend. She just lost her child. How could she laugh? One fellow bereaved mother told me that she tuned in when I returned to the air after my month off and thought, Wow, just wait until the shock wears off. But when it did, I’d like to think the cracks in my facade rarely showed. I was not being dishonest when I was enjoying those four hours on the air. They were my lifeline; our listeners were holding me up in a human chain of compassion and kindness. Any happiness people thought they heard was real; any sadness, while also real, was probably not as constant or as frequent as they might have thought.

  There were a few pieces of correspondence that showed a different side to people than the generosity of spirit of which I was such a fortunate recipient. One email came from a woman I’ll call Dee, who demanded that I come out and tell people the “truth.” The subject was “Disappointed.” That’s always a great point from which to start, right? There’s no word quite as laden with passive-aggression as that one, especially when it comes from a total stranger. Dee wrote that if Lauren had killed herself, we should not be ashamed, and that depression is a lousy thing. She pointed out that we must know that there’s speculation out there, and that people are buzzing. (Really? They were? That honestly had never occurred to us.)

  She suggested that Lauren had perhaps caught drug addiction from a relative, and that we should not be embarrassed, as no one is perfect “on this plane.” She warned me to tell listeners the truth before they lost every ounce of respect for me. She compared Lauren’s death to that of Michael Jackson and said that even his passing had an explanation.

  The dressing on this word salad came in the form of the twisted benediction with which she closed. Thoughts, prayers and all of that. What?

  That letter not only confused me but also filled me with sadness. My entire career, including the time when I was away from the radio, had been built on transparency and honesty. As I told the Toronto Star reporter, had Lauren died in any way other than what we had been told—even though we weren’t able to determine what caused her heart to stop—I’d have most definitely shared that with listeners and journal readers. What would I possibly have to gain by hiding or lying about what killed our daughter? Lauren herself had been all about helping others where she could and was fully invested in her radio station’s annual corporate campaign to spark conversation about mental health issues. She knew the importance of using a public platform for good; watching me try to accomplish that was as much a part of the atmosphere in which she grew up as the Beatles music that played constantly on our long car trips. After a great many rewrites, here’s what I finally settled on as a response:

  She absolutely did not kill herself. I thought today’s journal made that clear—so let me say it again: she did not die by suicide. That’s an assumption often made when someone young dies suddenly. But it’s wrong.

  She was happy, healthy and absolutely loving her role as a mother. The coroner could have told us immediately had she killed herself. They are now examining her brain and heart to find out what happened but there are no answers.

  I am shaking as I write this to you. I have been an advocate for depression awareness for some time now, as I myself have suffered it in silence for so long.

  If it was suicide I would tell our listeners. If you knew me, you’d know that. Nothing about my daughter’s life embarrasses me; if she’d died by suicide I’d use it as a way to spread word about it.

  I’m just stunned by this email. Let people buzz and speculate. They can’t touch us now. Our daughter is dead and nothing else matters—not gossip, not meanness, not anything.

  As is almost always the case when someone hits Send before thinking about how their words can wound, I didn’t hear back from Dee, and I was fine with that. I’d told her my truth, and besides, as anyone who has ever writte
n an angry (but deserved) response and then deleted it knows, sometimes it feels good just to get those thoughts out there—whether or not they’re ever read.

  * * *

  BEING in the public eye, of course, means being judged. We live and die by ratings, for heaven’s sake; what are they if not an ongoing popularity contest? I came to peace with that quite early on in my career (because I had to) when a competing radio station’s sportscaster compared my face to that of some obscure old-time hockey player who was obviously not known for his good looks. You tell me what woman would enjoy being told her face resembles that of an NHL player (although any of us could do worse than resembling Sidney Crosby). It might have ended with that little shot had not a writer for a local newspaper, known for its busty beauties on page three, picked up that dig and run it two days in a row (using the second iteration of the story to correct the hockey player’s name) in his gossip column on page six. To add to the absurdity of it all, I was on vacation that week and wouldn’t even have known about the whole nasty thing (in those pre-internet days) had my boss at the time not thought it necessary to bring it to my attention as soon as I got back. For the life of me I couldn’t—and still can’t—figure out what would bring him to do that, but I guarantee he would not have done the same to my higher paid and higher profile male co-host. It was just the way things were.

  That sophomoric slight brought home to me the fact that I would never be judged entirely on my career or accomplishments or failures, but on things mostly out of my control, like my appearance. My being female. My having a strong presence and the outright audacity to be more than a tittering laugh track when that was the role to which so many women in radio were relegated, especially on that sportscaster’s rock station. My simple presence and success would offend some, and there was nothing I could do to change that; it was part of the dues I paid being a woman in a male-dominated business, helping to kick open doors that had formerly been locked up tight to my gender. All I could do was my best, and so I long ago put forth a concerted effort to make peace with the petty judgment and unkindness that would be out there, hopefully keeping them at arm’s length (something the internet made increasingly difficult as time went on).