Latest / The Parent Tap / Memory, Grief, and a Daughter's Light
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: Please leave every single day in love.
- 0:03SPEAKER_00: In love to your child.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: I won't accept my daughter's death ever.
- 0:08SPEAKER_00: Don't assume the child will be alive tomorrow and my month or in Elvia.
- 0:15SPEAKER_01: Give us a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of what life was like with her and what your relationship was like.
- 0:21SPEAKER_00: And thank you again that you allow me to tell the people Katya's name again.
- 0:27SPEAKER_00: So first of all, I want to show a couple pictures of her.
- 0:31SPEAKER_00: So you will see her face.
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: Her name is Katya.
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: She left when she was just 21 years old, two and a half years ago.
- 0:41SPEAKER_00: She decided to take her life.
- 0:43SPEAKER_00: She was studying neuroscience, psychology, and Yamaha's time.
- 0:48SPEAKER_00: It was the last senior year.
- 0:50SPEAKER_00: Her GPA was zero or grade.
- 0:55SPEAKER_00: She was a very, very successful young woman.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: And also she was GPA in high school.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: She liked academics.
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: She was very successful on top.
- 1:10SPEAKER_00: She was a very talented painter.
- 1:13SPEAKER_00: A lot of hobbies, including learning languages.
- 1:16SPEAKER_00: She knew English fluently, Russian fluently.
- 1:20SPEAKER_00: I taught her how to read and write in Russian language.
- 1:23SPEAKER_00: She absolutely was fluent in these languages.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: She talked fluently also in Spanish.
- 1:31SPEAKER_00: She learned Japanese.
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: She absolutely amazing learned quickly Morse code using application.
- 1:40SPEAKER_00: It's just amazing.
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: Everything it was possible to learn to her.
- 1:45SPEAKER_00: She was eager learning, everything.
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: So a lot of energy.
- 1:50SPEAKER_00: She was friendly with everyone and she wants to support every single person.
- 1:55SPEAKER_00: That's why the hundreds of people survived, not just parents, hundreds of people.
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: Because she was friendly, she was honest, energetic, and very, very talented young woman.
- 2:08SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's beautiful.
- 2:10SPEAKER_01: Is there do you have a favorite memory or a favorite moment in time that you can recall off the top of your head?
- 2:17SPEAKER_00: From time to time, coming back to one of the warmest memory family trips.
- 2:23SPEAKER_00: Two years before she left us, we had a short vacation back to my country, Nova.
- 2:29SPEAKER_00: She was born there.
- 2:30SPEAKER_00: We immigrated here in the United States when she was 11 months old.
- 2:35SPEAKER_00: All together visited this country.
- 2:37SPEAKER_00: She was so happy.
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: She saw this open shields, great gardens, she saw people, was excited to be with us, to talk, to be connected even closely because she already started being a student.
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: So we couldn't see her all the time.
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: But this short vacation was like a gift.
- 3:00SPEAKER_00: I always was glad to be with her whenever she wants to go to the movie or whatever, just with you.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: It was the greatest time, I think.
- 3:12SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sounds amazing.
- 3:14SPEAKER_01: And the inspiration, what what was the inspiration she left on your life?
- 3:18SPEAKER_01: How does she still inspire you in your daily life to this day?
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: Since she liked painting, I think I came back to painting because of Katya.
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: First seven months after she left us, it was very hard to even see the brushes, acrylic, canvas of her paintings.
- 3:38SPEAKER_00: It was very difficult.
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: But later, through tears, I started to paint, and I feel that I have finally connection to her soul.
- 3:49SPEAKER_00: She is watching me.
- 3:51SPEAKER_00: She sees what I'm doing, what colors I'm mixing.
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: I hear her voice.
- 3:56SPEAKER_00: Oh Mom, it's beautiful, I'm excited.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: This is nice colours, like green very much, lavender colours.
- 4:04SPEAKER_00: And in that I'm painting it.
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's amazing that you have that connection still.
- 4:15SPEAKER_00: I think our brain protects us because first days we feel only shock with you, probably even less than people around us.
- 4:26SPEAKER_00: They understand that she's gone.
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand.
- 4:29SPEAKER_00: I almost didn't cry when we had celebration of her.
- 4:32SPEAKER_00: I agonized everything, I made movies, I prepared, I had speech, I even didn't cry.
- 4:39SPEAKER_00: People watching me and crying, but not me.
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: I think I instill in disbelief more of the time, and it's my brain.
- 4:49SPEAKER_00: But from time to time, if I start just a little bit understanding that she can't, and it's forever, and I won't see her, I feel I I couldn't breathe.
- 4:59SPEAKER_00: I just want to give up.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: I have no idea where I can get this power to live and move on.
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
- 5:07SPEAKER_00: And then in a few days or hours, I come back to my what I'm doing, and my brain just shut me up now, okay?
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: So it's enough for you after move on.
- 5:20SPEAKER_00: I have a medication, Didikrashan worked well with me and my brain.
- 5:25SPEAKER_00: But as I said, from time to time, it's hard.
- 5:29SPEAKER_00: And it's nothing to say just hard.
- 5:32SPEAKER_00: It's more.
- 5:32SPEAKER_00: It's more, it's impossible to describe with words.
- 5:36SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, well, thank you for trying for trying, at least, because I I again I can't fathom what you're going through.
- 5:43SPEAKER_01: But the grief aspect in general, I think it's there's probably this big misunderstanding.
- 5:48SPEAKER_01: What do you think people are getting wrong about it?
- 5:50SPEAKER_01: Family, friends, the support network that you have.
- 5:53SPEAKER_01: What are what are what would you want them to understand about your grieving process?
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: I heard many times that people keep talking about stages, shock, disbelief, and so on and so on.
- 6:05SPEAKER_00: And sometimes maybe they're like, oh, on what stage?
- 6:08SPEAKER_00: Maybe you accept, you move on.
- 6:10SPEAKER_00: I would say no.
- 6:11SPEAKER_00: All the stages, it's mixed here.
- 6:13SPEAKER_00: All the stages may be invented to better describe what you feel right now, but not at what stage you are right now.
- 6:21SPEAKER_00: It's probably not not correct.
- 6:23SPEAKER_00: And if people asking me, do you feel easier, you will move on?
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: No.
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: I not feel easier.
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: It just created my muscles to carry my pain.
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: I learned to continue living with this pain.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: And I won't accept my daughter's death ever.
- 6:45SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
- 6:46SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe.
- 6:48SPEAKER_00: I cannot accept that she's gone.
- 6:50SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe in 10 years and 20 years, maybe it will be a little bit different.
- 6:57SPEAKER_00: But right now it's getting sometimes even harder because I see how her friends started to be engaged, maybe having babies, but she's not, and she won't be.
- 7:11SPEAKER_00: And these things are very difficult.
- 7:14SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it makes me harder.
- 7:16SPEAKER_00: And wow, how how come?
- 7:18SPEAKER_00: Friends are moving on and she's not.
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: She was ready to do this too.
- 7:23SPEAKER_00: She was so crazy, so attractive, young woman, she was so successful, and she's not, she didn't develop it.
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
- 7:31SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's completely unfair.
- 7:33SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm so sorry you're going through those emotions, still present day.
- 7:37SPEAKER_01: And that's I don't know.
- 7:38SPEAKER_01: As as a father of a daughter, my my heart just goes out to you because I I I'll be honest, I don't know how you got to where you are.
- 7:48SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like that for a lot of parents out there, that would have been like something you just can't endure.
- 7:54SPEAKER_01: And you're still here, you're still kind of speaking out.
- 7:56SPEAKER_01: I yeah, this is how I found you on LinkedIn, and you were you were beautifully remembering or or memorializing your daughter, and I think that's how I found you initially, and so you you do a great job of keeping her memory alive.
- 8:10SPEAKER_01: What's something else besides the painting?
- 8:12SPEAKER_00: I'm very grateful to Katya's university.
- 8:15SPEAKER_00: They agreed to plant trees in memory of her.
- 8:19SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is so great.
- 8:22SPEAKER_00: I I unfortunately I have to drive more than two hours to visit this tree, but at least two, three times a year I can do that.
- 8:30SPEAKER_00: I I put painted trucks.
- 8:32SPEAKER_00: When I saw the first time this tree, I just wanted to hack her.
- 8:37SPEAKER_00: I was watching the starring, looking at this tree like this is what right now I have.
- 8:45SPEAKER_00: This tree.
- 8:46SPEAKER_00: If you want, I could tell story about this tree.
- 8:49SPEAKER_00: That'll be very interesting if you have.
- 8:51SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go for it.
- 8:53SPEAKER_00: Before Katya moved to her last tree to university, a few days before this, I think it tells that my mom had cancer.
- 9:02SPEAKER_00: She diagnosed with cancer.
- 9:03SPEAKER_00: And she started to get treatment in the hospital.
- 9:08SPEAKER_00: In one of the days after surgery, she saw a dream that Katya came to her and asked, please, please, I want mom planted alder.
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: And this is will be in memory of me.
- 9:23SPEAKER_00: I want alder.
- 9:24SPEAKER_00: My mom woke up and tried to figure out how the alder looks like.
- 9:29SPEAKER_00: She tried to figure out like meaning what tree, what I I don't know exactly.
- 9:34SPEAKER_00: And she called me right away.
- 9:36SPEAKER_00: Okay, after that, I started to touch information about this tree and figured out that it's possible to plant other here, that it's not difficult and is the most interesting.
- 9:48SPEAKER_00: There's tree growing very fast.
- 9:51SPEAKER_00: Katia was tall.
- 9:52SPEAKER_00: And it looks like she picked up this tree.
- 9:55SPEAKER_00: She came in dream to my mom with this question.
- 9:59SPEAKER_00: So I asked friends of Katia, can we do this something?
- 10:04SPEAKER_00: And friends started to collect money and make it possible to plant this tree near university, just in the territory of college.
- 10:15SPEAKER_00: So thankful to friends, thankful to mom that she saw my daughter.
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, it's so it's so great that my mom had connection with my daughter.
- 10:26SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
- 10:28SPEAKER_00: My mom, unfortunately, she died by cancer 11 months after Katia.
- 10:33SPEAKER_00: And right now they are together.
- 10:35SPEAKER_00: The connections to connection, it's very important.
- 10:40SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
- 10:41SPEAKER_01: That's a beautiful story.
- 10:42SPEAKER_01: What kind of acts of kindness or gestures from the community beyond the the tree dedication?
- 10:48SPEAKER_01: That's that's amazing.
- 10:49SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else that the community members or people in your circle did for you that really just helped you get through that difficult stage?
- 10:59SPEAKER_00: Yeah, first days after Kaiju's gone was so tough and in shock, and it was amazing to see how neighbors on my streets, they even didn't know my name, but they kept coming with some food, with flowers, with some gifts.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they even didn't ask me to talk, just gave me some food, knocked my door, and with just try to hug me.
- 11:28SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
- 11:29SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to my neighbors, to friends of my daughter, to my relatives that helped me to organize celebration life.
- 11:39SPEAKER_00: It was very, very touchful.
- 11:42SPEAKER_00: Thank you to them.
- 11:43SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's touching, and I'm so glad that they did that to pick you up.
- 11:47SPEAKER_01: Because again, that's that's something I don't think anyone can endure alone.
- 11:51SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
- 11:52SPEAKER_01: You need that network to really get you through the the tough times, and and hopefully they're still doing that because it's like it it's not like it went away, right?
- 12:02SPEAKER_01: You're still in that phase of difficulty and and the challenges of, like you said, of not really processing it, right?
- 12:10SPEAKER_01: Because I could see how it would still be surreal to even think that that that could be a possibility, right?
- 12:17SPEAKER_01: What do you what what would you tell them?
- 12:19SPEAKER_01: What advice would you give them based on your own experiences and what you go through on a daily basis?
- 12:25SPEAKER_00: If you raise the child, please hug the child as often as you can.
- 12:31SPEAKER_00: Tell that you laugh in Pachel.
- 12:35SPEAKER_00: Tell that she is beautiful.
- 12:38SPEAKER_00: If she is beautiful, especially a girl, they need to know that they're beautiful and they allow they need to feel support every single time.
- 12:48SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in adolescents they can keep the door shut from you and hiding in their room with internet and chatting and you don't have so intensive connection.
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: You can sit and be ready to listen.
- 13:05SPEAKER_00: This is the most important.
- 13:07SPEAKER_00: Not just asking questions and keep talking, just listen.
- 13:11SPEAKER_00: Whatever your child will tell you.
- 13:14SPEAKER_00: If he or she tell you I'm okay, are you really okay?
- 13:19SPEAKER_00: Maybe something boring.
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: Just tell me the truth.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: If they are smiling, just don't trust it every single time.
- 13:27SPEAKER_00: Be ready.
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: I'm here for you.
- 13:29SPEAKER_00: Whenever you go, I'm here for you.
- 13:32SPEAKER_00: Whenever the child will go, he or she, they need to know that whatever it's happened in their life, the parents will be always on their side.
- 13:41SPEAKER_00: Children need to memorize it.
- 13:44SPEAKER_00: Please be kind to them.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: Don't assume the child will be alive tomorrow in my month or in a year.
- 13:52SPEAKER_00: It's a life, it's unpredictable life.
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: You never know what's going to be.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: And it's not because of our family is bad and somehow we did a mistake.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: No.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: A lot of families fall completely happy with girls and children.
- 14:08SPEAKER_00: Please live every single day in love, in love to each other.
- 14:13SPEAKER_00: You at least you will decrease your blaming if something happened bad, terrible.
- 14:19SPEAKER_00: You won't blame yourself.
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: Just make sure that you did everything.
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: Yeah, amazing.
- 14:25SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I obviously I don't know what you've you feel like.
- 14:29SPEAKER_01: I don't want to portray that at all, but I did lose my best friend to suicide 10 years ago.
- 14:34SPEAKER_01: And he was my best childhood friend.
- 14:36SPEAKER_01: So there was years and years of friendship.
- 14:40SPEAKER_01: And I remember trying to process that was really it's been 10 years, but but it's been difficult to process, even to present day of how he skipped his thirty, you know what I mean?
- 14:54SPEAKER_01: Like he wasn't around for his 30s, and just the stuff that I did in my life, got married, had kids, all that stuff, he just didn't do.
- 15:02SPEAKER_01: Is and and I there's a lot of regret on my end about oh, I should have done this, I should have done that.
- 15:07SPEAKER_01: Do you ever have that conversation with yourself?
- 15:09SPEAKER_01: And how do you, if you, if so, how do you move past that or forgive, give yourself grace?
- 15:14SPEAKER_01: Because I think that even to present day, I feel a smudge of guilt of oh, I should have done this, or I should have had this converse, I should have seen it.
- 15:24SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
- 15:25SPEAKER_01: We put so much on ourselves.
- 15:26SPEAKER_01: Is there any of that there?
- 15:28SPEAKER_01: And if so, how do you give yourself grace for all that?
- 15:31SPEAKER_00: You're right.
- 15:32SPEAKER_00: I'm blaming myself every single day.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to live without such terrible guilt.
- 15:39SPEAKER_00: I replaying almost every single day again and again, finding my intakes, I finding what I didn't tell.
- 15:47SPEAKER_00: I replaying, and when I playing this hundred times, I feel okay, I know, I know already how to live.
- 15:55SPEAKER_00: Please come back, Katya.
- 15:56SPEAKER_00: I'm leaving here, I'm waiting for you still.
- 16:00SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I understand, so I I don't know where she is.
- 16:04SPEAKER_00: I cannot do that.
- 16:06SPEAKER_00: I still have to live with all this.
- 16:10SPEAKER_00: So some moms, grieving moms, telling me you did everything by that time you were there.
- 16:17SPEAKER_00: You did everything.
- 16:19SPEAKER_00: Of course, it gives me some relief, but at the same time, I understand what should be done differently then.
- 16:29SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm so sorry.
- 16:30SPEAKER_00: I cannot I cannot fix it.
- 16:32SPEAKER_01: Right, and I'm so sorry that you're you're dealing with those emotions and those those thoughts.
- 16:37SPEAKER_01: I uh my heart just goes out to you.
- 16:39SPEAKER_01: I feel I feel for you, but but also yeah, I want to be I want to be a support for you and and and everyone that is going through this too.
- 16:47SPEAKER_01: I know that you're you're helping them in a sense getting through difficult stuff.
- 16:53SPEAKER_01: And even for a dad that's obviously I haven't gone through what you've gone through, but it gives me more perspective and more incentive to go love my kids and and go hug and go be a better dad, be a better father, be a better spouse, all this stuff in life.
- 17:09SPEAKER_01: It just makes you want to be better at because I do realize that we only are given so much time with our kids, and we just really have to cherish those moments because you decided that it's so unpredictable, and we're not sure how much time we we truly do have with them.
- 17:24SPEAKER_01: Is what what's a ritual or what's something you do on the daily that keeps you in a positive headspace?
- 17:32SPEAKER_01: Is there something that you've relied on in terms of getting you in a seeing life in a little bit more of a positive light?
- 17:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 17:40SPEAKER_00: So what I reach I created Instagram page for Katya and I post a lot of pictures and videos there and nowadays and the whole pictures.
- 17:52SPEAKER_00: And every single day since I still playing for her phone, I'm still using her phone.
- 17:59SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing I'm seeing what picture was made this particular day, different years.
- 18:06SPEAKER_00: So some of the interesting pictures I'm posting an Instagram page that I created for my daughter.
- 18:13SPEAKER_00: This is my ritual.
- 18:14SPEAKER_00: So her friends, relatives can still see this picture.
- 18:18SPEAKER_00: Also, I created a separate website with all her memories, with favorite music, with words from her friends.
- 18:28SPEAKER_00: So everybody can come and see that.
- 18:31SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm glad that they still connect.
- 18:36SPEAKER_01: That's that's amazing that you're you're definitely keeping her memory alive, that you over like could have been a warning sign, perhaps, because I just I guess what I'm trying to get at is I'm trying to help other parents if there's something with their their teen or young adult to to to recognize this is this is this behavior or this whatever is a little bit out of character, or it's something that I should be aware of.
- 19:00SPEAKER_01: Is there something that that you could recall that that you that you noticed?
- 19:04SPEAKER_01: Or and again, I'm not trying to do this to like put guilt on you or anything, because again, there's nothing I I you're so sweet, and there's nothing I know there's nothing you could have done that you didn't already do, but I just asked because I'm just curious if there's any warning signs you think parents should be aware of with their teen or with their young adult.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is a very good question.
- 19:27SPEAKER_00: Of course, we all need to know some of the signs.
- 19:30SPEAKER_00: If, for example, child in depression, Katya wasn't in depression, but if child in depression, pay attention if it sleeps just a little bit or too much, if the bodies change, if it's withdraw with social activities, if it started to change with the colours or everything, it's very important.
- 19:50SPEAKER_00: What about Katya?
- 19:52SPEAKER_00: She took some medication for for more stability.
- 19:56SPEAKER_00: It's was it was needed for her.
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: And she uh one day she tired to take this medication.
- 20:05SPEAKER_00: I didn't know, but she gave up taking them.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: It's very important.
- 20:11SPEAKER_00: And only one or two friends knew about this.
- 20:15SPEAKER_00: If you know that somebody is taking medication and give up, please, please try to help because it's very, very dangerous.
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: It automatically will lead to some suicide or sort.
- 20:28SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that this person will go and kill herself right away, but it's the brain starts working very dangerous, very dangerously.
- 20:38SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great lesson and cautionary tale for for pe people out there listening.
- 20:44SPEAKER_01: That that because my daughter's five, but I still like I'm working myself up to that age of when when she is a teen, when she's a young adult, and all the different variables, circumstances, hardships that they're gonna have.
- 20:57SPEAKER_01: And and so I think in in some way, even though I can't relate to the pain and the loss and and everything you've gone through, I can I can still having a daughter understand in some way the gravity of everything and also just the love and and and the appreciate you keeping her her memory alive and her going in memory for for her friends, for her family, for you, for everybody that loves her and still loves her.
- 21:25SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you can just ride the cart with some warm words and hide this cart in their pocket and their backpack.
- 21:34SPEAKER_00: It will be like a gift.
- 21:36SPEAKER_01: Can you tell the parents out there, the viewers out there, where they can connect with you?
- 21:41SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like there's this great opportunity to have this this supportive community network, follow your Instagram that you're that you're maintaining to keep her memory alive, all that good stuff.
- 21:52SPEAKER_01: Where can people connect with you, find you, and and follow your journey?
- 21:57SPEAKER_00: So you're inviting people to connect, right?
- 22:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
- 22:01SPEAKER_00: It's still be I'd love to share Instagram pages and LinkedIn and Facebook.
- 22:07SPEAKER_00: Please, if you have a question, ask me.
- 22:09SPEAKER_00: Katia didn't show any signs before this, but if you uh keep asking about her life, what adolescent signs, how she behaved, I would be happy to help to discuss and tell you.