The first months after Riley was gone were also made easier by the arrival in Whistler of our nephew Quinn, the son of Kerry’s brother Shaun. We were happy to have him. Quinn worked on the mountain and spent his spare time snowboarding and making new friends. I would whip up batches of chocolate chip cookies for them, revelling in the spirited young people who livened up our too-quiet house.
Kerry was making noises about leaving Whistler altogether, though. He didn’t like me being up there by myself while he was in Vancouver working during the week. The house was so big for just the two of us. He thought it might be best for us if we sold the house and bought a condo in Vancouver, where we could be together and away from the memories.
At first I agreed with him. Maybe it would be good to have such a radical change. But my gut was telling me the time wasn’t right: if I left the house, it would be like abandoning the kids.
While we were grappling with the decision, I flew to Toronto to visit some of my old IBM friends. A group of us, all women, went up to stay in cottage country, and we were out shopping one day when I wandered into a local artist’s shop. Right away, a painting caught my eye: a row of colourful beach shacks titled Moving On. I also noticed, on an easel, a photograph of a lovely girl the artist told me was his daughter. We had a nice conversation, but although I kept going back to the painting, I didn’t buy it. Back home, I regretted that, realizing that the painting would be the perfect Christmas gift for Kerry. When I sent the artist a letter telling him our story, he shipped the painting out to me with a note saying it was his gift. His daughter had suffered from depression, he said, and our story had resonance for him.
In the end, the real estate market made the decision about the possible condo for us. It wasn’t the right time to sell the Nicklaus house, so we didn’t. There’s no question, though, that it has been difficult to stay in the house. We had cleaned out most of Kelty’s room already, and Cath and Tegan went through Riley’s room right after she died, because I couldn’t face it. We kept personal items from both kids—cards and artwork and toys like Riley’s “Beautiful Baby” doll—that are today stored in keepsake boxes. But there are still traces of them all over the house. Once in a while, I open a drawer and I am instantly filled with sorrow, transported into the past by Riley’s favourite fridge magnet or a scribble of Kelty’s on a piece of paper. And yet I need reminders around me. Family photographs fill our bookcases, our life story captured in picture frames. There is a snapshot of the four of us on the Panama cruise; a photo of model-pretty Riley in a purple dress; the picture of Kerry, Riley, and me wearing yellow rain slickers on the day we buried Kelty’s ashes.
Downstairs, the sports room is devoted to their memory. Hockey and golf medals and trophies line the shelves. The kids’ hockey jerseys hang on the wall, and everywhere you turn there are framed accolades and peewee hockey pennants. The jersey Riley wore to play forward for the Whistler Winterhawks in the 2002 B.C. Winter Games is framed with a photo of her team. Kelty’s Notre Dame hockey jersey, white with red trim, is also framed, its front covered with Sharpie inscriptions from his friends: Pippy, you were more awesome than you knew... Thanks for making my days better at N.D... Kelty, your impact on us will be measured by the legacy you left behind... We will miss you and will learn by your passing.
People ask me all the time how I can get up every morning and walk out of our bedroom and into that empty space that was once filled by our children. They wonder how I can still work in the loft office where Kelty hung himself. But my office is the place my son felt safe enough to take his life. It’s the spot where Riley would come and keep me company, ask me to braid her hair while we talked about girl things. It’s hard to explain to others, but I’m comfortable working up there on the computer. Like so many places I go now that they’re gone, I feel my children with me.
As 2010 loomed, Kerry and I decided to vacate the house for friends who planned to be in town to enjoy the Olympics. At the generous offer of a friend, Andrew Prossen, we joined an expedition to the Antarctic with his tour company. Kerry and I flew to Ushuaia, Argentina, for the nineteen-day cruise. The boat was an old Russian spy ship that accommodated ninety guests. We not only met some amazing people but took in tours guided by experts who knew every detail about the fascinating flora and fauna. We often shared dinner and drinks with a couple from Australia, and one night I told them about losing Kelty and Riley. Kerry said later he thought it was something I should keep to myself. But that’s who I am. I wasn’t shouting it to the skies, but I couldn’t hear other people talk about their children without mentioning my own. When people ask me today if I have children, I always say, “Yes, I have two children. And I lost them both.”
After the cruise, we stayed on for a few days in Argentina, holing up in a little rental while exploring the culture. We made it home for the Paralympics in early March. My sister Nancy, who was volunteering at the games, was staying with us, which helped with the transition back to the house. Sadly, shortly after our return, our little dog, Kelly, died. She had been so much a part of our lives, and so loved by Kelty and Riley, that it was like losing a little part of them.
Kerry and I went back to Winnipeg that summer, the first time we’d taken our annual vacation without one or both of the children. It was tough seeing people we hadn’t seen since Riley died. Some didn’t know what to say, and with them, our loss was like the proverbial elephant in the room. But I always tried to make people comfortable enough to have the conversation. If we didn’t bring Riley up, it was as if she hadn’t existed. “Please don’t be afraid to talk to me about her,” I would say gently.
Life without our children is a learning curve with no end. The hardest lesson is the one that demands we move forward, because to let go of the past means letting go of Kelty and Riley, and I will never do that. Kerry has marked their memory by getting matching Gaelic tattoos of their initials, one on each arm. For me, talking about them is one way to keep Kelty and Riley alive. We are blessed that our children’s friends have remained in touch with us. We try to see them as much as possible, to catch up on their lives and see where they are heading as they mature. Pat and Noah had tattoos in Kelty’s honour done on their arms, each saying “KPD, The Fighting Irishman.” Britt memorialized Riley with another tattoo, an Edgar Allan Poe quote: “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” Underneath, it reads “Riley Rae,” with the dates of Riley’s birth and death.
I dream about Kelty and Riley all the time. The dreams are sometimes sad and sometimes not. Sometimes they are still babies, and sometimes it’s as if I just saw them yesterday. But then I wake up and it hits me. My children are gone.
People ask me if I still talk to Kelty and Riley. Of course I do. I know that when I die we will be reunited, and I find comfort in that. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that gets me through the day. People ask me, too, if I ever think about how my children might have turned out.
I have no doubt that, with time, both of them would have found health and happiness. Kelty would have gone to university because that was his plan, and he would probably have become a lawyer. His social grace, charm, and sharp mind would have brought him much success, of that I’m sure. He would be married and a father. He used to tease me that he wanted two children and that I would be called Grams. Riley, I think, would have married someone like her dad, full of life but quietly strong, a spiritual man. She wanted to be a mom but had thought she might adopt, she once told me, because there were so many kids who needed homes. There’s no question she would have opened that yoga studio in Whistler, teaching new generations about the benefits of the ancient practice that had brought so much serenity into her life.
As 2011 began, life for Kerry and me settled into a new routine: me in Whistler during the week, driving back and forth to Vancouver on foundation business and for other appointments, and Kerry coming up for weekends. We went back to the things we had loved doing, with each other and with the kids. We walked and hiked and skied as of
ten as we could. Kerry buried himself in his work. He found it rewarding to oversee the good work being done at Pacifica. That he would end up running such a place seemed fitting. The insights both of us had gained about addiction and mental health issues were a saving grace for us both.
And we refocussed on the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation.
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Choosing Hope
KERRY AND I weren’t sure at first what to do with the foundation after Riley died. It had been humming along since that day in the hospital when Kelty lay dying, and in the eight years since we had raised more than $4 million. We were proud to have been part of the first-class new mental health centre at B.C. Children’s Hospital. But now it was as if the wind had gone out of our sails. We wondered if it was time to take a step back.
“Gin, we’ve raised a lot of money,” Kerry said. “We’ve made a difference. Now maybe we need to let the foundation carry on by itself.”
I thought he might be right. But then, on October 10, 2010, Kerry and I attended the dedication of the B.C. Children’s Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre, named in our son’s honour. It had been made possible with an additional $450,000 grant from the foundation. In addition to speeches by dignitaries and hospital officials, we listened to the emotional testimonies of people for whom the centre represented help they desperately needed. With tears in our eyes, without needing to say it to each other, Kerry and I knew. We couldn’t stop. This was just the beginning.
The Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre offers tools for health professionals, parents, and youth in several languages. Parent and youth peer support workers are available for consultation, along with information on addiction and mental health issues, options for treatment, tips for self-help and prevention, and free educational events. The centre’s website, packed with information about depression and updated around the clock with news and events, features heartfelt testimonials from youth, message boards, and Q&As. Private appointments can be made, and in what is best described as a telepsychiatry service, the centre also runs a communications system that can link mental health professionals by video anywhere in British Columbia. The centre’s in-house staff are knowledgeable and its resources first rate. The Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre is everything the foundation could have hoped for and more.
Once Kerry and I had decided to continue our work with the foundation, we threw ourselves into it wholeheartedly. I became president, taking over most of the duties Kerry had shouldered and drawing a nominal salary. In September 2011, the foundation entered a team of thirty riders in the GranFondo, a charity bicycle race from Vancouver to Whistler. Our goal was to cover our costs, but we ended up raising an astonishing $43,000. Sponsors like Hyundai and the Whistler Question newspaper helped up the ante, and the Ride Fore Life became our new annual event.
Teenagers today, raised on social media, are conditioned to expect answers at their fingertips, and the foundation wants to be there with the information when someone hits the keyboard. The website we’ve established features the stories of Kelty and Riley and a wide variety of resources, including links to articles, books, support groups, and mental health organizations specializing in the treatment of depression. One link connects people to a hotline to instant help for those who need it, be they family members or adolescents in trouble. Along with statistics on depression, the website details warning signs, a critical piece of treating the disease and preventing suicide. If the information allows even one parent or friend to recognize that a loved one is depressed, we can save lives.
We’ve also set up Twitter and Facebook accounts to keep the conversation going about the issues and the work that the foundation is doing. Sometimes I log on to post inspirational quotations and links I think are important. Our tracking research indicates that the foundation’s website is attracting users from around the world, a sign that the need is out there. As we head into the future, the board is looking at new marketing plans to extend our online reach.
In the beginning, we had hoped the foundation would eventually become a national organization, but we soon realized we had enough to keep us busy in our own backyard. The statistics are horrifying. Teen suicide is considered the second leading cause of death for teens in Canada, and, in some years, the B.C. coroners’ office has reported that suicide is the number one leading cause of teen mortality in the province. Over the years, we have given grants to the Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of B.C., Whistler Community Services, and depression-screening programs in schools.
As the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation has evolved over the years, so, too, has the board. Some of the early enthusiasts, having done so much to get things off the ground, have moved on. Today, a new generation of members is hard at work taking us into the future. As president, I spend much of my time meeting with organizational boards and health experts, giving speeches, and attending events. My message is always the same: Depression is a disease that strikes without regard for its victim, a disease that can be treated and prevented and, most of all, a disease that needs to be talked about openly, with understanding. I deliver the message through the stories of my children, telling audiences how Kelty and Riley enriched my world through their lives and how they have defined it in death. I still get emotional, but I know this opportunity to help others is the gift my children have given me.
I am happy to say that in the eleven years since we started the foundation, there has been a sea change on the subject of depression-related suicide. There is less stigma now, and the level of awareness has been raised. People talk openly about mental health, and it has been especially heartening to watch big companies step up to the plate. The Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health not only issued special stamps—one with a life-affirming tree design—but in 2011 granted more than $2 million to forty-seven non-profit mental health groups, part of the $4.6 million it has awarded since 2008. Bell Canada launched a high-profile, multi-year charitable program in 2010 to raise funds for the treatment of mental illness and promote research and access to care across the country. Bell’s 2012 campaign, Let’s Talk, featured six-time Olympian Clara Hughes as national spokesperson. Hughes told Canadians about her own battles with depression, quick to stress that she is no different, despite her accomplishments, from the one in five Canadians who will experience some form of mental illness during their lifetimes. When suicide cut short the lives of NHL stars Rick Rypien and Wade Belak in 2011, the once-quiet struggles of the tough-guy hockey enforcers became front-page news and the subject of radio talk shows. A 2012 documentary titled Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me, sponsored by Bell, featured Toronto sportscaster Michael Landsberg sharing his experiences.
The media and big corporations are finally getting it: mental health affects us all, not just on a personal level but on a social and economic one. To combat depression and other mental illnesses, we need to start talking about them openly, respecting them as diseases that require collective action.
Although things are better from a big-picture perspective, there is still a lingering stigma when it comes to families. People don’t want to admit that their son, daughter, mom, or dad is depressed or might be suicidal. Whenever I give a speech, people come up afterward to ask for guidance. My home phone is constantly ringing, with desperate people on the other end of the line. What do I do? they ask. Where do I go? How can I get help for my child? There is still a feeling that when you or someone you love is suffering from depression, the world is a lonely place. But it’s not: there are millions of people going through the same thing. Thankfully, there are more and more places to turn for information and treatment. Many of us are working to get the issue into public school classrooms, much like the current programs designed to teach youth about bullying.
In the fall of 2011, I spoke at a private function held to raise funds for a proposed Lions Gate Hospital mental health building, a facility similar to that at B.C. Children’s Hospital. The foundation had committed $100,000 to the Lions Gate in
itiative, and I was happy to help in any way I could. The guest of honour was Margaret Trudeau, whose keynote address focussed on her own high-profile mental health issues. I was delighted when she gave everyone a copy of her memoir, Changing My Mind, inscribing mine with “Happy Birthday—I will take your lead, Ginny.” (The event had been even more special when I learned that Margaret and I share the same birthday: September 10.) Her brave decision to go public with her battles with manic depression and bipolar disorder serves notice that these diseases cut across all social lines.
Early in 2012, I accepted an invitation to speak at a future date at Notre Dame College, Kelty and Riley’s school in Saskatchewan. After Kelty’s death, Kerry and I had sponsored an annual scholarship in his name, and I had been thinking it might be time to fund a mental health counselling program on the campus. Like all schools, Notre Dame has had its share of students grappling with mental health issues, and there could be no more appropriate place to carry on Kelty’s legacy.
After Riley’s death, we thought long and hard about what to do with the foundation. We knew we had to carry on because of the difference the foundation was making. But Riley’s death made us realize that the focus of the foundation needed to shift. It wasn’t just about those who suffered directly from depression; it was about the people around them, the parents, siblings, friends, and family members who are also deeply affected by the disease of mental illness. Riley hadn’t been depressed, but her struggles after Kelty died had been directly related to losing her brother and to having watched him grapple with the demon that is depression.
That our daughter’s death was so unexpected and so unnecessary, that it happened just when her future seemed so bright, made our commitment to the Kelty Patrick Dennehy foundation that much stronger. Depression is a family affair, and Kerry and I became dedicated to honouring and creating a legacy for both our children. Among our new initiatives was the Breathe Fore Life scholarship that we started in Riley’s name. And in the fall of 2012, the Jog4Joy was dedicated in Riley’s honour. The five-kilometre walk/run through the streets of Vancouver to raise money and awareness for mental and emotional wellness is just one of the ways we will continue to use the foundation, and the memory of our wonderful children, to improve the lives of others.
Choosing Hope Page 11