An Invitation to Grow

I accept, Universe.

It’s been three hundred sixty-two days since Chloe’s death. Almost a year since the universe sat me down, ripped out my heart, looked me in the eye and said, “What’s next is up to you.”

In the Beginning

It seemed impossible to imagine what could possibly be next other than trying not to drown in an ocean of pain and sorrow. How dare I look to the future when my responsibility was to stare into past, desperately trying to find ways not to leave my baby girl behind.

At some level, even from the beginning, I understood this nightmare could be a catalyst for profound growth. I knew it because I had already lived it once before. But in the moment I was consumed with not being crushed by the weight of the loss of my daughter and my failures as a father.

Obsessing about Chloe’s eulogy and memorial service gave me a sense of purpose and a mission for the first seventeen days. I wasn’t able (or maybe willing) to give Cindy’s eulogy and I regret it. This time I would step up and use the opportunity to make a difference.

And I did. That means more to me than most anything else I have done in my life.

I spent the first few months doing my best to take care of the never-ending and morose details required to shuffle a loved one into the afterlife. I certainly didn’t do it alone and I’m grateful I didn’t have to. My beautiful wife is the heroine of this story. She held my hand, led the way and talked me off the ledge more times and in more ways than I can count.

She sat me down immediately after Chloe died and said, “Things like this destroy relationships. We need to commit to one another right now that we’re going to grow stronger through this”. That was and remains one of the most impactful moments of my life. That commitment has served as a North Star that shines brightly, no matter how dark the night.

I wasn’t able to work during that time and my business partners stepped up, supported and loved me exactly how I needed. All they ever asked of me was to be open about what I needed. When I did, they were there without question. Every. Single. Time. I loved these guys before and I love them more today.

In the Middle

As the acute slowly morphed into the chronic, I made a commitment to myself by extension, the people who love me: I will turn over every stone on the path to healing. I will explore every possibility, do every thing and share the experience in the hopes of helping others.

If you know me, what comes next won’t surprise you. I became enamoured by the idea of “winning at grief.” I’d show people what grieving well could look like. I’d already screwed it up the first time. Now the world would witness the phoenix named Jason MacKenzie rising from the ashes.

I decided I would write a book about grief for men. This book would change the world by changing the way men grieve. I created fifteen outlines and never wrote a word. The self-imposed pressure I felt to write this book as a way of making meaning from Chloe’s life and death was immense.

Eventually my mind accepted what my heart knew all along. I don’t know a fucking thing about grief. For me to change the world through a book, I need to experience, explore and accept what the universe is trying to teach me. And I need to do it until the time is right. Today is not that day.

I underwent some incredibly powerful guided psychedelic experiences. They revealed things to me that had been previously hidden. I embarked on one journey wanting, more than anything, to believe that Chloe is OK and that I’d see her again. But my ability to believe that was shackled by longstanding and reductive ideas about life and death.

I emerged from that experience with a new understanding of the limitlessness of what’s possible in this life and beyond. And until this day, until my dying days, I believe Chloe is ok. She’s with her mama. She didn’t leave us, she went home.

Another journey revealed to me my inability to accept that I couldn’t save my girl. I’ve said before that Cindy’s suicide shattered Chloe’s soul. I should have seen how deeply she was hurt. I should have found a way to reach her, to convince her and to set her back on the right path. As always, the plant medicine showed me what I needed to see I wept, crying “I’m sorry. I love you”, over and over again. The tears washed away the guilt and I forgave myself.

And then I succumbed. I suppose it was inevitable.

I had managed to stay away from pot for nearly two years. This was after I had given up drinking and smoking cigarettes almost a decade earlier. Even after Chloe’s death, I kept my distance from pot for six months.

But then, at a summer festival, I spiralled into a panic attack. The heat was stifling and the crowds were suffocating. Everywhere I turned, I bodies were pressed against me and people were pushing past me, indifferent and unconcerned with my experience. I couldn’t breathe and had to escape. When I did break free, I found myself across the street from a weed store. Before I knew it, I had a joint in my mouth and another in my hand. Instead of breaking free, I broke down.

Over the next four months, everything got worse. I smoked more than I ever had in my life. And trust me, that’s saying something. I was digging a hole, one joint at a time. Before I knew it I was in over my head and didn’t know how to climb out.

I became depressed. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I started having panic attacks and being unable to be around crowds of people. I started to hate the work I do. But I kept smoking even though I knew it wasn’t working. Despite all the evidence, I had a hard time seeing how dark things were becoming. I just wanted to be obliterated and to escape from the inescapable.. my daughter is dead and I can’t bring her back

Someone said something important to me about grief last year. They told me that coping with grief can chip away at a person’s morality. When I’m in the throes of pain, it’s so easy to make choices that are not in alignment with my values. No amount of rationalization can hide the truth from myself, although not for a lack of trying. Being a stoner paralyzed by my misery is not who I am. Acting like that person, day after day, made an already difficult experience worse.

People delude themselves into thinking weed is not addictive. And for many, it isn’t. When a joint is an attempt to escape from your pain it’s a different story. Every puff strengthens the chains shackling you to your personal hell. My pain didn’t go away, it intensified. Not only had I lost my daughter, but now I was losing myself. I had to stop.

A month ago I did and I feel reborn. I’m not mad at myself for what happened. I realize it was part of my healing process. I needed to revisit the darkness to rekindle my commitment to moving toward the light. Those four months were a necessary part of my healing experience and I wouldn’t trade them, even if I could.

One of my foundational beliefs is that words create worlds. The words and metaphors don’t describe our reality, they define it. In that spirit, I’ve started referring to being free from pot as “being sober.” In the past, I’ve made a distinction between alcohol and weed. That allowed me to keep smoking because in my mind the two were very different. They aren’t, for me at least. So now, I’m committed to sobriety, in all the ways. And it feels great.

There is No End

And now as I move away from the middle I realizing I’m moving towards the…middle. There is no end to this experience. I’ll live the rest of my days without Chloe on this earth. No amount of wishing for things to be different will make them different. They are as they are.

Like yin and yang, one of our greatest superpowers is also one of our greatest curses. That’s the ability to choose how we look at things. I’ve heard countless people tell me that the loss of a child has left the irreparably broken. They say that it’s impossible to heal from a wound so deep. While I understand how they feel, they are boldly speaking the future they least want into existence.

I choose to look at this experience as an invitation to grow. I have the opportunity and agency to accept the invitation over and over again. There will be times when the urge to take the invitation and burn it seems overwhelming. And if I do, I will forgive myself because I know I will never hate myself to the life I most want to create.

I will do my best to experience what this journey has to show me. I will continue to practice radical acceptance because I know that’s the foundation for forgiveness and peace. I’ll ask for help when I need it. I’ll continue to see my therapist even when it’s the last thing I want to do (like today).

And most importantly, I will try to make meaning from both Chloe and Cindy’s lives and deaths. I’ll share my story, I’ll teach what I am learning and I will help other grieving people feel a little less alone. I know I have the power to make a difference in people’s lives and I will do my best to make that choice as often as I can.

I will honour both Chloe and Cindy, not through the tears I've shed, but through the steps I take. When I think about it like that it reminds me that the universe extending me an invitation to grow is a gift.

I accept.