“Down the rabbit hole”, a metaphor for an entry into the unknown, the disorienting. To enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, complex, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds. ( An allusion to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.” (www.freedictionary.com)

Cooking has always held a special place in my heart. I remember asking my mom to replay over and over again this one obscure cooking video. The kind that came in VHS format, wrapped in cellophane, with a bonus attachment of matching glossy recipe cards of colorful 80s stylized food. Probably an odd choice for a 5 year old, but it was totally up there with the carebears, kids incorporated, fraggle rock, and every other show of that 90s kid era. I would tote those recipe cards all over the place, while practicing my future chef skills in my fisher price play kitchen.

Then there came that fateful day my mom was cooking a pot of spaghetti for dinner. She went downstairs to change the laundry, and I seized my moment. The spaghetti seemed to be missing a special something… I can picture it now, my mom looking into her pot, confused, as to why it suddenly looked so watery. I’d imagine about 3 cups or so too watery. As it was just me and mom those days, naturally, it would have to have been me. “Alecia, did you do something to mommy’s spaghetti?” I nodded my head proudly. ” I can see her gears working, as she wondered just what I had done, and then her eyes locked onto the now almost empty dog bowl and the water trail across the kitchen floor. Turns out my mom wasn’t too thrilled to find that in her absence, I had added my secret ingredient to the batch. That’s an understatement– Oh Lord, was she MAD! The memory and my behind still stings.

It didn’t deter my affinity for cooking though, and as I grew older, my flair for the kitchen became an appreciated asset in our household. With my mom being a single mom and beautician, she often worked crazy hours, evenings and weekends. I learned to cook and feed myself, and found a fulfillment in the pleasure I could bring my mom through cooking her breakfasts, and helping with dinners. She would rave about my food, and I gobbled it up. Even though my life growing up was very tumultuous, I found peace and stability in the kitchen. I found an intuitive talent that fed my need for affirmation and to people-please. It was a way that I could feel, see, hear, touch, and taste love.

My curiosity and passion for food and cooking only continued to grow. You could always find me hanging around kitchens, asking questions, and offering help. I spent my college summers working in a country club, serving up perfectly plated courses, while pining over the executive chef’s creations. From the ages of fourteen through twenty-five, I was immersed in the food industry:host, server, bartender, catering. The smells, the clattering of pans, the heat, the hustle, the f-bombs, aka, kitchen jargon, beautiful plates, and satisfaction of a good meal! I was in my element in the kitchen. Whenever there was a big transition in my life, I would look into attending culinary school, but somehow, my grandmother’s voice always echoed. She saw much more in me than to simply “be a cook”. And so, I 86ed that idea and earned my Bachelors Degree in Sociology, and later my Masters in Education in School Counseling. I never stopped cooking though.

Until, my brother died.

Etched in my mind is that phone call. Those three words, that shattered my world in seconds. “Nicholas is gone.” I can hear and feel it so clearly. I don’t know if there are even words to describe the surrealness and anguish of that moment. I knew at once that he had taken his life, and in that same vein, it couldn’t be true. My baby brother, 19 years old. A dear friend once equated the feeling to “Wanting to run out into traffic.” That comes pretty close, and still, there just aren’t words.

At almost 13 years older, I have always felt more like a second mom to Nick. I bought supplies and decorated his nursery. I picked out his first photo-shoot outfit. I fed him, changed his diapers, protected him. I endured the side comments and sneers from strangers when they saw me strolling him around the mall, while my mom worked in the salon. Later, after I graduated college, and was financially more secure, I would get him school supplies, take him clothes shopping, we would go on brother-sister dates, and his birthday, oh, how I always did something special for him on his birthday!

Except, I hadn’t the year leading up to his death. In fact, it was the most distant we had ever been. In the span of a year and a half, I had sold and bought a house, gotten married, had a baby, finished graduate school, gone through my husband’s third back surgery and started a very emotionally taxing and demanding job as a school counselor at a high-need middle school. It’s complicated, to say the least.

My brother’s suicide filled me with despair, guilt, shame, and disbelief. The following months became an emotional rollercoaster, as I looped inside the depths of bereavement, the loneliness of grief, and the torment of ” what ifs.” To put it in words, it has been what I imagine as the spiritual breaking of my heart.

Things weren’t good. I struggled to find the energy or desire to parent, to wife, to friend, to keep up a household, not to mention work. Counseling students with depression, trauma, and suicidal ideation triggered and depleted me daily. I had nothing left when I came home. I struggled to help others understand what I was going through. I struggled to understand what I was going through. I was drowning in the wake of the trauma, and I had to admit it. Mostly to myself. I struggled.

It took a lot of courage and support from friends, colleagues, and family, to give myself permission to take a leave of absence from work. As they say on airplanes, you have to put your oxygen mask on first. What help are you to others, if you’re passed out? I needed to stop and take in the damage. Breathe. Fall apart. Breathe again. Heal. For this, I am humbly grateful to have such an opportunity.

I spent the first two months of my leave adjusting to not working and trying to understand what it meant to have my “job” be myself. I kept my son home from pre-school to soak up time with him. I cleared out our attic, and made tons of to-do lists that never happened. I went to therapy, cried, attended bereavement groups, cried, tried more yoga, cried, tried out reiki, cried, filled my kindle with spiritual/ afterlife books, until I could no longer wrap my mind around it. I even sought out a medium ( that was a set back). I was desperately searching to find something, anything, that could help break through the dark clouds that obscured the sunshine and find some kind of meaning.

I did all of this, yet still, I feel so disconnected from myself. The heartache and pain. The gravity of his loss, it’s heavy, it’s real, and the “goneness” of him is visceral.

In losing Nick, I’ve also had to lose myself.

If your world is upside down, then the logical thing to do would be to learn to walk upside down too.

Welcome to my rabbit hole, and the adventure home.

Yours in thyme,

Alecia