Katherine Loses Colin To Cancer

Katherine Loses Colin To Cancer- Patreon
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SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Hi guys. Welcome back to the Surviving Siblings Podcast today. I have another incredible surviving sibling with me. I have Katherine with me today. Katherine, welcome to the show.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Hello. Happy to be here.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, we're happy to have you here too, Katherine. And today you're gonna be sharing about the loss of your brother Colin. So.

Take us back in time a little bit and share about you. I know you're the older sibling like myself in the story, but tell me a little bit about your family dynamics. You, Colin, tell us what childhood was like for you guys.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Sure, I'm happy to be here. So growing up Colin and I were incredibly close. We only have four and a half years between us, which I personally think is just the right amount of time. 'cause we kind of tail ended different grades and schools and things like that together. And growing up was. I would [00:01:00] say it was a fairly strict household.

I, we felt like we could be ourselves within the confines of what our parents and where their expectations and their lives were. So we were extremely close because when it came to being united against a common front, that was the person who I had beside me. We were also homeschooled.

I was homeschooled fourth through eighth grade. He was homeschooled from pre-K through eighth grade. And so for a long time. Every day in school. That was the only person that I had sitting there with me. And so we became just naturally, extraordinarily close being like that. Even when I would go to college, when he went to college, we still would visit all the time and we I haven't been to a live concert without him since he died.

We was always just the two of us and maybe our dad that would go to live concerts together, but it was our thing.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Oh, that's so special. Yeah, I was I wasn't homeschooled for as long as you Catherine like. Wow. But we were ho there were times in our life where we were homeschooled because we moved so much, and so if it was like a transition type year, we were homeschooled for like [00:02:00] that. Semester or like maybe that year before we could get into like whatever school my parents wanted me to go to.

So I connect with that because your siblings are more than your siblings. They're also your classmates, even though you're in a different grade. Right. So it's a totally different dynamic. So you, it was just you and Colin. So you are we're gonna talk about this later in the episode, so you can definitely give perspective to people who are the only surviving sibling in their family.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yes, it was something, one of the big sort of revelations of therapy post because my brother died in early 20, 20 and two months later, COVID hit and shut everything down. So therapy was hard to get by at first until I found someone that would meet me in person. But being an only an a newly only child, I guess is a weird way of putting it, put a weird, I felt like a weird obligation to be both him and me for my parents and having conversations with my mom, for instance, on do I wanna have kids?

Because suddenly I'm the person who's gonna provide kids now was [00:03:00] something that I just had to get comfortable with. And I'm not saying it happened right away. It took maybe a couple years before I was sitting in the car with her and I was like, are you okay if I don't? Have kids of my own and she was like, yes, we're fine with it.

But it really turns everything on its head of what you thought your life was gonna be and what you had to get done. For better lack of better words.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, absolutely. We'll chat more about that as we go through your story, but I just wanted to call that out for there's so many siblings that listen to this, Catherine, which you are one of them that listened to the show that is the only surviving sibling. And often people will say, oh my God, it's so much harder.

And you know me, I'm not into comparing, but there are different things that come up. So I do wanna talk about that in your story. But before we get there, so walk us through. and his diagnosis, take us through that time because you are off to college, you're off having your life.

Life goes on, like you said. So you guys were homeschooled actually, to go back for a second, and then did you go to public school at some point?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: So I went back to high school in ninth grade. I wanted to do band and music, and there just [00:04:00] wasn't enough in the homeschool community, both in Florida where I actually live now and in Virginia where I spent the last 15 years.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Right.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: So my parents were like, let's just send you to public school. You can go into band.

And then he went into high school. He went back to school for eighth grade. He was in eighth grade when I was in 12th grade, and they wanted us to ride the bus together, so we ended up doing that and then he actually joined the high school marching band as an eighth grader. So we did a lot of marching band stuff together as well.

And then after high school, I went to college and we were four and a half years apart. So I left college and he went into college. And even during all of that, we still, our Facebook messages go back to 2008 or 2009, and I downloaded all of them and I keep them with me. But yeah, even if we weren't, if we were two and a half, three hours apart, we were always constant communication all the time, visiting each other all the time.

So it never really, I always used to think about, people would talk about falling out with their siblings or not talking very much with them. And I was like, I have, I can't relate. I have no idea what you're talking about. 'cause he was always the person I could go [00:05:00] to for things Life.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. And that look, there's so many different sibling relationships. So a lot of us connect with. Your story where it was like a constant, deep connection and some of us have more complicated relationships. That's why it's so important we have the representation on the show.

So take us through, so you guys are in your twenties at this point when Colin gets diagnosed and it's a very rare cancer he gets diagnosed with, but I want you to share with us. So walk us through what that was like. He was 24 when this happened

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Correct. So he was diagnosed when he was 23 and then he passed away when he was 24, is how that. Yeah, so he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2009 which is just a gastrointestinal, like GI tract I never honestly looked it up. I think it would've made me sad if I did. So I lived in blissful ignorance a little bit.

But late 2018, we were actually going to go to a concert together, and he messaged me. He's like, I think I have gallstones. I'm not gonna be able to make it. And I was like, who needs a gallbladder anyway? It's [00:06:00] fine. Just get it removed, we'll be fine. And I took my dad to the concert instead and that's when they got weird numbers with his liver and they were like, we don't know what's going on.

And for about a month we lived in this like stagnant, like we don't, we just, no one knows what, what's going on. He got diagnosed on my 28th birthday, so December, 2018. And then, yeah, he was, he passed away January of 2020. So he put six months into fighting and after six months he went terminal, and then it was just riding it out to the end at

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Okay, so let's go back again. So in 2009 when he. He, 'cause I was diagnosed with something similar to him with that, but like it's, I'm clearly fine. But so that he was having obviously GI issues and things like that, but nine years went by and he was fine. Right. So when he called you that day and you guys were supposed to go to this concert together, what made him think he had gallstones or something going was something that had happened before or?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: just, I think he [00:07:00] just ended up going to the urgent care because he wasn't feeling well and I think they saw that he was a little bit jaundiced and they sent him to the ER at that point. Because we didn't know if it was an ulcerative colitis thing. We didn't know if maybe it, his medication was off and he needed to like make medication adjustments.

But I just remember that he went that day and then they sent him to the hospital from there, and then he got all of his testing done and the numbers were really off. It's hard even, and this may come up in conversation later. It's hard to remember. I feel like I blacked out for that entire 14 months where I'm like, anything could've happened.

But I do remember that he texted me saying. He was pretty strict with gallstones and then maybe 24 hours later he was in the hospital being like, they don't know what's going on. And we're a very like solution oriented family, so when we can't figure out what, what's going on and we can't fix it, we get a little bit miffed about it.

So I just remember it being just like this blanket that kind of settled, but we all figured it was going to run its course and everything would be fine. So.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Right. Okay. So yeah, so that happens and [00:08:00] he's in the hospital and then. Walk us through, like, let's go back through that again. So his diagnosis and stuff, was that happening just from what they pulled in the hospital or was he going to see specialists or like what, what happened?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: believe there were specialists. He went to college at University of Virginia up in Charlottesville, and they have a very good medical program, so that's where he was. He and his girlfriend lived there and were going through care there. I believe he saw a couple of specialists. They thought it was something called PSC at first, which is Primary Sclerosis Cholangitis, which is not bile duct cancer, but it's basically you need to have liver transplant within, I believe, 10 years.

And that was going to be the. My dad was like, that's the worst case scenario. And then I think they just kept on testing it and eventually they did like MRIs and biopsies and stuff and found some not so great stuff. I think that was the order that happened at that point. It was really only a month and I was working at a hotel at the time.

I was working a lot [00:09:00] of night shifts, so I wasn't super in communication with my parents super well, just because. A, I didn't think it was that big of a deal and B because I was working so much, but I do believe he saw a specialist before got diagnosed. Yeah.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. And so walk us through him getting diagnosed, like who finally diagnosed him and like. This is like you shared with me before we started chatting with all of you. This is rare what he has. This is not something that a 23, 20 4-year-old would typically have. So walk us through that part of the

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It was so. Like, just shell shocked at first, it was completely, it was one of those things that, doesn't happen to you. And I remember not I felt such a need as being that only sibling that was there to remain so steadfast for my parents the entire time that I really don't think I grieved at all really until way after the fact.

Because being strong for my parents was all I was going to do. They were really worried about [00:10:00] things. I'd be going home being like, it's gonna be fine. We're gonna figure it out. Everything's gonna be, hunky dory. I don't remember when, I don't think my brother actually said the words to me.

I think I just found out through my parents, because we had such, we, there was a lot of pressure to keep the relationship just how it had always been for those last 23 years. And I didn't realize how rare it was until he was gone, until people started talking about it more. There was a lot of things that just weren't said in the time,

in the moment because we were trying to live in the present as much as we could, that I didn't realize how rare it was until after

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SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: I totally get that and I think a lot of people will relate to being strong for your parents and, so it doesn't sound like you were living near him right at this point, Kathryn, or what was that

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: two hours away. I was living about two hours away. Traveling and seeing, we would, I would, we would see each other still all the time. I would drive down or he would drive up and things like that. It was close enough to where if there was an emergency, I could get down there within a couple of hours, but not so close that I could just go, any other day we, I still had work.

He was still working at that point too. We were, but I think it would've been different too if we weren't, didn't have such a strong relationship beforehand. So really, Facebook chatting back and forth was the same vibe as me going down to visit him in person or vice versa. So it didn't really feel like we lived all that far away.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. So after he was diagnosed, and [00:13:00] tell us again what he was diagnosed with. This was a, I can't say it. I don't

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Bile Duct Cancer. I, it, there's a name for, I think it's. Cholangiocarcinoma, but I'm, it's a lot of letters. I just call it biology of cancer because it's the easiest way.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: And so after he's diagnosed with this. Then did you guys know that this was gonna be quick or like, what happened next? Like what was he going to be treated for this? Like what were the expectations and what were you guys going through as a family to tackle this? Because that's really what was happening and that's what happens with cancer.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: So the first thing was, is he eligible for a liver transplant? Let's all get tested. I got tested, my mom got tested. A couple of his friends got tested and one by one and just started knocking off the list of why people couldn't do it. I was the first person that got tested and I was the first person to be told that you don't, you can't donate to him, which was.

Devastating beyond belief. I could barely, I was at work when I found out and I was like I can't believe [00:14:00] this. He had a couple of friends that could have donated, but they had medical things that were going on as well. He is going through treatment at this point in time. And I remember, I'm not even sure when it was March or May of that year, my mom was eligible and she was.

All the way up to, I drove down there for her appointments with the surgeons to start scheduling. And we had a plan, if we're gonna do this, your dad has to be my caregiver, and my brother's girlfriend would be his caregiver. And then I'd go down on the weekends to give them relief while everyone else was going to work.

And they had one last test for her, and it was on like a, there was something with her thyroid. So we went and got ultrasound done and maybe two days later we found out she couldn't do it. And it was, I was sitting there with her when we were, they were signing the papers of like, here are all the complications from surgery.

Here's the oppor, the chances that you can not survive the surgery. Here's all this like harrowing stuff to be with your mother for, and then for it all to fizzle out into nothing was that was right there. It [00:15:00] was as a much as much emotional like energy as I could have spent in that year, just in that couple days.

So.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, I can imagine. Oh my gosh. To get that close and then realize that you can't, like that must have been, I'm sure that wasn't the end. I'm sure they were still trying to find other people, but.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It was the day after his birthday, I believe it was. So he. Told me that it was terminal on his birthday that year, and then I

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Which is when?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: July 9th,

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: And we're in 2019 or 2020? 2019. 

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Says, I've got a year. They're giving, they've given me a year to a year and a half. And I'm like, okay, I hate this.

But we still get. Christmas, we get New Year's, we get Thanksgiving, we get our birthdays, we get, we can still do these things. And after that, it really just became a matter of just talking as much as possible and, getting smoothies and doing what we've been doing for so long.

And then he died six months later and I have [00:16:00] never felt more cheated out of anything in my life. I didn't know at the time, I didn't find out until later that he'd been told six months to a year. And he had told me longer. I think it's to, keep up the relationship that we'd had for so long, and I get why he did it.

But at the same time, I've, I was so, so mad when that, when it was six months and he was gone, I was like, this is the worst. So,

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. I'm sure that, I'm sure you can look back now and understand why he would do that. I'm sure it was so that you would make the. Most of the time that he was here and that you could plan and do things together, I would imagine, right?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yeah, and I think he just didn't want our, he didn't want me to have to act like I was fine when I wasn't around him because it is exhausting to, put on the face of everything being okay when it's not. And I think he just wanted to be, he wanted me to be me all the way through the end, which I love and I appreciate.

But in the moment with all those emotions, I just remember feeling this rage towards him.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, so for those six months. What was that like for him? Was [00:17:00] he active the whole time or was it a mix and then at the end, was he in the hospital? Like, walk us through what those six months were like for you and that experience, because those of you who have lost a sibling to an anticipatory loss, like that time, there can be, there's usually good moments and then there's some moments when things are difficult.

And then, yeah, lead us up to when he passed and how that was for you.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yeah, so it, it happened so slowly. That's the weird thing, is that when it happens slowly, you almost don't realize day to day that anything's changing until, one day you wake up and bam, and you're like. Whoa, everything is different. And everything was very it. He remained active and we were just doing our thing until around, Thanksgiving of that year.

I remember doing thanks going to Thanksgiving and just having this weird feeling that this was gonna be like the last Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. I was like, this is a weird, like this is gonna be the last Thanksgiving is how I felt. And then. December's Rolling along. Rolling along.

We have Christmas, of course, everyone's doing Christmas and Thanksgiving with my family because everything's [00:18:00] going on, and he looked really bad. Christmas day, I think when he and his girlfriend came in. I think he was bleeding out of one of his like ports that he had. And I was like, my mom was like, really?

We just didn't know. It just something didn't feel right, but in my mind it's six months. It's, I've got six more months, so I'm like, just gotta enjoy the holidays as much as we can. But we were driving from Bedford, Virginia, where my parents live to Raleigh, where my in-laws live, and I wrote him a letter on my like on my notes app on my phone.

Because I just felt, I felt like I had to just, there was something going on. I had to get out. And that's how I process most of my emotions. This is just through writing. And that's when we found out that he was gonna go have hospice in his apartment on New Year's Eve. So at that point, I'm telling my bosses at work and I'm like, this is no longer something, it's gonna happen in the future.

And he was in hospice for three weeks. So I went down and visited, I think every weekend I was down there. And one weekend [00:19:00] he signed his DNR paperwork, which was difficult to be for around four. And then my uncle just family just started trickling in a little bit more and more.

I took off a leave. I took a leave from work. My, parents all took leaves from work and all that stuff. But then the actual day I drove down from my home. Mom's like, come for an extended visit. I'm like, okay, I know what that means. I'll go for an extended visit. And it was 36 hours from when I arrived to when he died, that, that 36 hours is what passed, I believe, from that point.

And it was so eerie. It was just the eeriest. Quiet thing because it was, we're not a loud family, it was just a different, it was a different vibe in the room and we. I don't even think he talked a whole lot at that point. He was, he basically I felt like he had one foot in one world and one foot in the other.

He was talking about people that were standing in the corner that [00:20:00] weren't there, and he was talking about going up the stairs to like something different. And it happened I think three times that we were like, it's okay. Like you can. You can go like, we're gonna be okay. And then he kept coming back.

And then around two o'clock in the morning, my mom was like, his breathing is different. And 20 minutes later he had passed. And it was just the strangest. See, even now I can't even really put it into words. And it was the weirdest sense of relief and devastation at the same time. Because you've been grieving this entire time and you're like, every time he breathed in, I was like, thank God he's still alive, but he is in so much pain.

And then he would exhale, and I'm like, I don't want him to die, but he's not in any pain anymore. And it was just back and forth and back and forth forever. And so when he didn't inhale again, it was just the most cognitive, dissonant thing in my brain, I had a very, I just couldn't even really grasp where I was or where I was doing.

But my dad gave me the biggest hug he has ever, he's ever given [00:21:00] me. And until, up until, it's still happening now. Whenever he hugs me hard, I'm just like. Shot back to that day, and I'm like, just brings back visceral feelings of not knowing what's going on. I guess

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. When you mentioned, your mom said Come for an extended stay. Did you know when you went that this was probably gonna

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: I knew it was probably it it was snowing and I was supposed to be at work. And then they said like, oh, it's snowing. We, we've canceled your event. And I'm like, well, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave and go down there. And I think I knew, and I can't remember if it was someone who was there who told me, or someone at his memorial that told me, but they asked me if I thought he had waited for me to get down there.

And I, I almost think he I wanna think that he did, one of the things he really wanted to do in like the final hours, he's like, I wanna go to a concert. I wanna go to a concert. So we were playing music just through my phone and like listening all together, music that he and I had played together. And so I'd like to think that he wanted to make sure I was there first.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. [00:22:00] How, how was that as he was like saying things like it's the staircase and talking to other people, like what was that experience for you?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It was, I was still looking out for my parents. I was still making sure that my mom was eating and that my dad was like taking a break from his phone and like, taking a nap and things like that. I was still making sure that they were, and then his girlfriend, they'd been together for, oh, no, many years.

They lived together. They had two cats, all the stuff. Just making sure that they were all okay, but I just, it was just. I don't know how to describe it. It was crunchy in my brain where it's like, you are hearing it, but it's, you're, it's so out of body. It's so such a dissociative time where you feel like you're just watching a movie of someone else.

And it wasn't until years later that I was like, oh, that wasn't like I was watching my own, my own life happening in front of my eyes. 'cause I'd had dissociation [00:23:00] experiences before, but never quite like that.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, which a lot of people can relate to because just death in general doesn't feel like a real experience when we're watching it happen. It's very intense. I understand that. So yeah. So Colin takes his last breath and then two in the morning. And so what happens next for you guys? Did you guys did a funeral for him and what was life like after that?

Yeah.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: So we the hospice nurse came to claim to call death two hours later. So we were just sitting in his apartment. With this body for two hours just sitting there. I really honestly don't remember what it was like. I can't remember what we were doing. So she called death and two hours later, the funeral home came and picked him up and that it became extreme.

That's when it became really real. I ended up being with my family for a, maybe for the full weekend. We were down there. We went and talked to the Crematory house, and we cleaned out his apartment and we did all that. We had the hospice equipment picked up, we had all we disposed of his medications, all of that kind of [00:24:00] stuff.

And it was very hazy. It was just, one foot in front of the other, don't really we went and had. Breakfast somewhere. I don't remember where it was, what we ate, anything like that. My husband does say it was the scariest he's ever been with my dad because my dad was so flat and just done that.

He's like, I've never seen your dad like that. It was so scary. But we had a, his memorial was a month later, so we just had a little memorial service at like a church in Charlottesville. And then we had, all of us. Our old teachers from high school were there and all of his friends were there.

And I eulogized him, which was awful. But I'll always remember he had a lot of his friends that I hadn't met from college, and they were there and they all knew who I was because he talked about me all the time. And I'd never knew it because he's a boy and he never really expressed his emotions very well.

But they would say no. Oh we traveled to Chicago and we would, we'd stop and we'd look around and he was. 30 feet the other way. 'cause he was taking a picture to send to you kind of stuff. And that was really, [00:25:00] that, that hammered home. Just, that the love went two ways even though he didn't always say it.

So that was really sweet.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: We don't always hear about that stuff. Especially as the older sister, as the sister, and then the older sister. Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I had a similar experience, especially with my brother's girlfriend. They had been together for a couple years and she was just telling me so much stuff and I'm like, oh, he does love me.

Okay. Bringing levity to like a really dark situation, right? It's like, oh, it's like, oh yeah, but she told me some sweet stuff too. So I really connect with that part of your story too. 'cause you're like, oh, they did talk about

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: oh yeah, exactly. It's like wasn't just me. It wasn't a one way street here. Like there was.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: you, yeah. It just makes you feel like you're actually like, and of all the people to have to feel like you're part of their every day. It's like that, it's that sibling that's close in age and you're just like, oh, okay.

Like I'm, and with it being a brother, the boys and their emotions, it's just, yeah, it was just nice.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: They don't share in the same way, typically. Right? Typically they don't. Yeah. And I [00:26:00] think you sharing about your dad too, just as another kind of example of how men just, they grieve differently and it can. Be especially the dad and the group, and

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yeah.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: stoic shutdown experience.

And yeah, then that's tough.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yeah. And it's be and with being. And that kind of goes back to the idea of just being the only one that's left. We all grieve in such different ways, and I had already had quite a bit of therapy before this for other past traumas. So when I finally got into therapy, I was like, I felt really safe there.

And I was like, I'm just going to, I can air everything out. But my parents, we all grieve at different speeds and they weren't quite there yet. And so I remember I, well, I don't remember when, but I remember when my parents started. Wanting to talk about it more, and I had passed that point.

So them bringing it up was triggering me to go back when I wasn't quite ready. It was just all the offset speeds, just, it leads to even more challenge and communication than you had before.[00:27:00] 

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. How in, how interesting. And I think it's good that you're sharing that because you're right, everybody moves at a different grief, speed. And for you, do you remember how long it took you to go to therapy after you lost your brother? Was it pretty quick, or what was your journey?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: it was pretty quick. I wanted to go, I had set up a, it was the memorial was President's Day weekend, 2020, and I had set up a therapy appointment for almost, for only like a month later. But then COVID hit and everything got canceled, so I didn't get to actually go until June of that year.

And once I went

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: we were just, everything was virtual, but also things were shut down and so people really hadn't adjusted a hundred percent yet to that. So that's, yeah. That's

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Suddenly the whole world was how I was feeling on the inside. Suddenly everything was locked down and I was, but I worked in an essential job. I worked in food service, so I still worked, I still went to work every day. But finally I found a therapist that was willing to see me in person.

'cause that was the thing. I don't like doing virtual therapy at all. I need to get out of [00:28:00] my environment and out of wherever I am to feel like I'm actually able to access that part of me. And so I needed someone who was going to see me in person, and I finally found someone like six months later and started saying them.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Wow. But you were ready. After a month, you would've gone in a.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: I just knew I had a lot of feelings in my head that I didn't know what to do with, and I had such a good experience in therapy for trauma years before that. I just knew like if I just get in there and I release the pressure valve a little bit, I'm gonna feel so much better. And I just didn't, I didn't even know how to write my problems out.

They were so foreign to me. I was like, I just need someone, some non-biased third party to listen to me. Vent about, not like nonsensical venting. So I knew, I think I knew before he died that I was going to need pretty extensive therapy when it happened. So I was.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, and I relate to you, Catherine, because I've always been a journaler. I have an English degree and I have a creative writing degree, and so I've always been a journaler, and that was a red flag for me too. And maybe it, yeah, maybe I should more [00:29:00] say a green flag that I needed to go to therapy because I.

Journaled almost every day of my life for so many years since I was like young, like I have journals back from when I was like 5, 6, 7, like young. And then the last thing I wrote in my journal was my brother's eulogy. That I read at his celebration of life, and then there was no entries. And I remember looking at that sometime in like the spring, when I say spring, I mean I'm in the south, right? So more like February, March or something after I lost a good friend of mine and I was like, time for me to go in and see my therapist. So it was not long for me either. It was like pretty much right away. Because I also connect to that part of your story too.

I feel very lucky because I. I actually saw a therapist that I had been seeing and worked through a lot of trauma from, like family stuff and just other things that had happened to me when I was younger. So I was really lucky to have that relationship. So having a positive past therapy experience, I connect with that part too, [00:30:00] with your story.

But I knew, I was like, I'm not myself because I'm not. Writing anything down, like nothing's coming out of me. Even though everything is in me, nothing's coming out of me. So I really connect with that part too.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: And that was something, this therapist that I saw I saw him for about, I'd say a year. And then I ended up switching to someone else who I saw for like four and a half years before I moved down to Florida. But this guy, he triggered something in my head because I told him, I said, I'm so mad because I wanna write so badly, but all I can write about is death and all I can write about is being horribly sad.

And he is like, well, why don't you sit down and just do that? And I was like, oh. That's a great idea. And so I would, I had a book I wrote it in 20 20, 20 21, but it started off solely as like my grief, emotional support novel. And every time I would get out of therapy and I'd be so upset and I'd go and I'd write just stream of conscious whatever was going on in my head.

And it helped so much. It's like, like I said, you have a pressure cooker and you have to like release that steam every now and then [00:31:00] where it's gonna keep building up. And it was just like a weekly steam release and, I definitely didn't get it all out and then the steam builds back up and you get mad about things two years ago that you're mad about, again and all that.

But at least it shows that you can, it helps you realize that you can get through it either way, move not forward, but move I don't know. I relate my brain to a file cabinet and sometimes the files have to pop up in the front of my brain and sometimes they settle back. So.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Why do you feel like. You weren't giving yourself permission to write about death and darkness. It's like your therapist had to open that permission for you. Why do you feel like you weren't giving yourself permission to do that?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: I think I just, a lot of me couldn't remember fully what had even happened. That, and also I was, I think I wasn't giving myself permission to even think about it yet. 'cause I was still in those baby stages of like, my parents were, just, we were six months in, they were still well. They were completely zoned out in their own world, and I felt the need to protect them from it and which is unusual, which [00:32:00] I guess is ironic because I don't share my writing with anybody outside of publishing it.

But, or maybe I thought that when I would write about, I'd finally admit that it happened. I'm not really sure what it. What it was. And I also, I like writing things. I don't know. When I was stream of conscious writing it stream of conscious writing doesn't always make sense as it's just like run on sentences and words and things like that.

And I maybe I felt like I needed to understand it more to be able to write about it, but really I needed to write about it to understand it more. So it's funny how that works.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: I actually really connect with that because. When you don't understand something that's going on inside of yourself, and then you're just gonna write a bunch of stuff down, which is what stream of conscious like it write, that kind of writing, just, which is what we did in like creative writing class and stuff.

Like, duh, that's what we did. That's how you come up with the idea. Like, but I just thought it was interesting. That's why I wanted to ask you that, because it, it feels like you weren't giving yourself that permission. And that's why therapy and having a third party is so helpful because it just. [00:33:00] Saying one thing in a certain way can just crack you wide open.

It's really helpful.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: And that's what I find too. 'cause writing is extremely therapeutic for me in general. And I always say, I like to put my issues into my children and then let them figure out my mess for me. Because even just removing yourself and thinking about it from a third person point of view, like I write characters and I am writing that character and that character is coming from my brain, but somehow I can learn things through those characters by just removing myself from my own issues.

And it's really it's like my favorite part about it is that I've learned really cool things about myself that. I wouldn't have learned if I just sat there and like made myself think about myself. I just put it into someone else and figured it out, so it's kinda nice.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah. I love that. Let's talk about, let's talk a little bit about what we touched on earlier in the episode, Catherine, because. You just brought up so many things, and I'd love to dive deeper into this, about being the only surviving sibling. I think this is a, your story, is that right? You're the only surviving sibling.

You had a very close relationship with [00:34:00] Colin, and I loved how you were sharing, like we've touched on some things. Both love to dive deeper into this and share your perspective and what advice you would have to an only surviving sibling because it comes up so much. It comes, you guys ask me about this all the time and when I'm, live on social and things like that, it just comes up a lot. So I'd love for you to give your insight and how that's been for you over the past, five, six years of your loss and this journey of losing Colin so quickly to cancer and this rare cancer that usually a 23, 20 4-year-old does not pass away from.

So it's, well, it's a story of anticipatory loss. It's a very quick anticipatory loss and a very young loss. And so how, yeah. I. Let's dive into that. How is it being the only surviving sibling and I, and there's challenges that come up too. Like I'm sure you think about this, like you're sharing about kids.

So feel free to dive into that and then that pressure. And also you're gonna have the pressure of taking care of your parents as they grow older. And yeah, share that with us. I'd love to hear your [00:35:00] perspective.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It's so complicated too because everyone has such different relationships with their parents based on how they grew up. When Colin died, I really hit that. Life is so, so short. I have to just, I have, if I wanna get a tattoo, I'm gonna get a tattoo. And if I wanna dye my hair purple, I'm gonna dye my hair purple because I don't know what tomorrow is going to be.

And I don't know what next year is going to be. That required a fair amount of therapy and a fair amount of deconstruction of what my childhood was. I don't wanna, spend six hours talking about that, but there was a lot of repar, there's still reparenting that's going on between him and I, or between myself and my past self.

And that was one of the hardest parts of losing him, is the one other person that knew my childhood like I did. I didn't have anymore. So now I had to try and figure it out without. Having a backboard to bounce things off of. It really involved me just becoming. Tremendously more myself.

I like to say I was an emotional ditto, like the Pokemon that just like morph shapes into whatever, like it needs to blend in. You're [00:36:00] with one group of friends and you're one person, you're with one group of friends and you're a different kind of person. To the point where I needed to learn to just be whoever I was and I needed to figure out who I was and what I loved to do and what was worth living for and what I could.

It wasn't worth being anxious about. Because if I didn't, if I didn't have that, then I would've, I feel like I would've maybe revert. Like for instance, sorry, I'm rambling. My family's still in Virginia. I'm in Florida. My husband and I made the move about eight months ago. Big move. Sold our house, bought a house down here 14 hours away, changed our, our jobs and all of that.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Congratulations though. That's awesome. Yeah.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It was a process, but now we have it's beautiful and there's, beaches here and there's no snow, so hopefully there's no snow. But I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't taken a step back and almost established boundaries more before I started letting them back in.

And when you're establishing boundaries in the wake of loss, it feels [00:37:00] like a really crappy thing to do. Because you're like, all my parents need are me. Who am I to put that distance between me and my parents when there's already so much distance from this loss in our life? But I had to create the boundary before I could like step into, before I could let them in, I had to like build up the boundary first.

I don't know if that makes makes any sense. But that really just involved me being what I call selfish, which is really just self-care. But I was I grew up thinking that self-care was. Selfish. So I just

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: You were rewiring all of that, Catherine, which I think you should be really proud of. And I understand that too. I understand that too because yeah, I think it's ingrained in us that. Putting yourself first and taking care of yourself and you are literally describing what so many siblings, not even just the only surviving sibling like so many siblings describe.

They're like, well, I don't want to. Not speak to my mother during this time because she lost her son or she lost her daughter. But the reality is [00:38:00] we're you're hitting on such a big point here. We are no good to anybody if we aren't taking care of ourselves. And so I really love this part of your story where you realized I don't wanna morph into this person or morph into this group.

Like I wanna be Catherine and I wanna be very true to myself and like. I feel like this is how you're not only honoring yourself, but honoring your brother, which I think is pretty amazing.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: I think he would be 'cause he was definitely, I was more of a a follower like when growing up. And he was much more of the, I'm gonna just take off and see what fits best for me. It was just how we were, and I'm definitely adopting more of what I think he would've done. So I'm like, he would be.

He'd be okay with that. And I think he'd be really proud of me. 'cause there's a lot, it's tons of work. And when you go to therapy every week and then you have your day job and you're like, oh, my day job is so exhausting. It's the 40 hours. And then you realize that every other hour during the week you are working on yourself.

And you're like, okay, it's, it doesn't seem like a big deal at the time. And then you look back, a year or two later and you're like, okay, I, that was a lot of [00:39:00] hard work that I did, even though it didn't really feel like it, it just felt like it was really tough the whole time.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: You nailed it. Yeah, it is a lot of hard work. And it's so interesting because you were talking about feeling self. By doing that, but like it's self-care, but it's actually not selfish at all. And I'm sure you, this is where you're going with this too, because it's actually pretty amazing to.

Go into therapy or however you wanna deal with this, but I'm like you, I did therapy. And really look at like, do I like who I am? What parts don't I like? How am I gonna heal these parts where, I've made mistakes, maybe other people have made mistakes. How am I gonna prioritize myself? It's hard work, but like you said, when you look back six months, a year, two years after the work you've done, you become the person that.

You knew you could be, or even a person that you never knew you could be in such a positive way, and it's life changing and it's such an amazing thing to do, especially when you've gone through a significant [00:40:00] loss like Lucy. Colin.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: It's a feeling of empowerment. I think that's when I left my therapist in Virginia, I'd been seeing him for about four years and he is like, how do you feel now based on how you felt in 2021? And I was like, I just like myself now. And I honestly wasn't sure if I could have said that before just, and it wasn't even one thing that I liked more or one or another.

But I think it's just the. Being able to say I'm proud of myself and not have it come off as like, I don't have, feel like I have to apologize for my ego anymore. When I say I'm proud of myself, I feel like I can just say it and know it and believe it and not have to defend why I think I'm so proud of myself.

Just say that I am. That's just, yeah. I don't think it would've happened if I hadn't gone through all of this, I think I would still be very much the outside I thought the outside world needed me to be instead of just me.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: right. You've like found this deeper relationship with yourself through this process.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yep.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: I think that's [00:41:00] amazing. What other things have come up for you before we. Move on to some a few other questions I have for you, but what other things, so you've had some boundaries that you've had to put in place with your parents and take that back.

But have you thought about these questions that I get all the time from the only surviving sibling, like what that's gonna look like many years down the road? You already mentioned you had a conversation with your mom that you don't wanna have children and 'cause that was a pressure that you were feeling.

Are there other things that come up for you too?

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Sort of, it's not. So in the end, my husband Mike, and I want, we wanna foster and to like foster to adopt. We both taught, we both seen kids that just need so much love in whatever amount of time that we can give it to them. So we're not sure if we would adopt in the future, if we just wanna foster, but it was, and we had thought about that before too.

But really it was a matter of biological, no. Passing on, which is what I brought up with her. But in their own way of coping, my parents moved my surviving grandparents closer to us after my brother died. And that [00:42:00] definitely, it's been a challenge. It was my dad's mom, and my mom's two parents.

Moved them from Florida and Kentucky to Virginia. And they're having a time with their older, and my parents, my grandparents are all in their eighties and nineties now. And my parents, they said they've learned from this. They're like, we're never going to put you in a situation like our parents have put us in.

Because they have to deal with, there's just logistics and there's just all this stuff. And because my parents have been, and I have been where we've been, we understand what matters and we understand the end of life and we understand. And so they're like, we're gonna make sure that you don't have to be the one moving us around all over the place.

We're gonna find a place and we're gonna stick, stay there because it's gonna be healthier for everyone. And I've thought, I thought about a little bit at the very beginning of. Oh my God, I'm gonna have to somehow help my, both of my parents retire with absolutely no help. But my husband's wonderful.

I know that he'd be there to help me out with it. And also now that they've seen this, and both of my grandfathers are [00:43:00] now passed, so they've seen, they've taken care of that and they've seen everything of my brother. So they have a unique, a unique insight into what is important and what. maybe be shed to the side that isn't so I'm not nearly as worried as I was, not nearly

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: That's awesome. I think that's awesome. It's not awesome that they obviously had to go through a lot to get there, but that's awesome for

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: mind for everybody, for every, for them, for me, for, anyone else, my, anyone else in our family. It's just, it's a piece to know that we all we're all on the same page, and it's all just about genuine quality and love and not necessarily where they are or what if they're in a facility or if they're in a different state or whatnot.

It's just the base of just like everyone should just be there and love each other and know what's important and no extra fluff, anything like.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that because it just, it all these, all these things that you think about or that come up when you're the only surviving, [00:44:00] it's a unique, it's a unique experience. Like we talk about losing a sibling here on the show, but then there's all these individual experiences about how you lost your sibling and then where you are in the family, and then what your relationship was like.

Right? And so it's important to give. That perspective. So tell us a little bit about where you are today and how you're moving through this. You've shared quite a bit, but therapy has been a major part for you as it is for me too, and I think that's great. But tell us a little bit about how you are today and another, and this comes to mind too, another question I get a lot too Catherine. Your husband is super supportive, so has he always been really understanding? So it's a two-parter for you where you are today. And then also we love any insight you're comfortable sharing about your husband. 'cause this comes up a lot too. Like how does your spouse deal with it? How, the loss and how have they been supportive?

Or maybe, you've had to grow into that support. I think you're great person to touch on that as well.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Definitely. Well now we're completely like [00:45:00] life. I, we like to say that we had so many, a vast number of crises in the first 10 years we've been married. We're married 10 years in October, and we're like, we need to have. Maybe one crisis at a time now instead of multiple ones piled on top.

He's also the older sibling. He has one younger sister who's about three years younger than he is. So it's actually a pretty similar age gap there. In the moment. He didn't understand it, but also I didn't understand it and there was, I couldn't expect him to, if I couldn't. He did his absolute, I for, I know he did his absolute best.

Whether it came across as that or not, it was such an impossible thing. Like, if the roles were reversed, I would've, I can't even imagine how my relationship with him would've been if his sister was sick and all that. So he definitely, he supports in the way that he. Love languages are different. He supports in his own way, and he loves me in his own way.

And I, I know that he read for my dad at the memorial service. My dad was like, I can't read about this. And he asked Mike to do it, and so he did [00:46:00] do it. He's like, I didn't really like it because it was sad and terrible but I did it because, I love you and I love your family.

And I was like, excellent. And so now it's it doesn't come up as often in, day-to-day conversations, but if I ever am. Really upset or it's just something's triggered me or whatever. He always just lets me process my emotions like I do and and I know that he's there. We don't talk about all the time, but I know that if I were to sit him down on the couch and be like, I saw something today on Facebook and it made me really sad, he would be there for me for that.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: I think that's like, thank you for sharing that, but I think that's really what it's about. I think sometimes we overcomplicate it and no one's ever gonna understand a hundred percent of what you went through because you're Catherine losing Colin. No one's ever going to, but I think it's gr. I do think it's great.

He has a sister, so at least he understands, okay, that dynamic. But again, it's so individual, this loss, and every loss really is. And so I think it's great that he's there ready to listen and how [00:47:00] sweet for him to read that for your dad. That's awesome.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Yeah, that meant that definitely meant a lot. We'd only been, we'd been married for not even four years at that point, so it was, yeah, he was as a, as not Stonewall, but as like Stoney faced as he can be. He is a pillar and he's just, he, I know that he's there whether he tells me it or not, he is, and that's that's, I believe that's what his dad is with his mom and that's how he is with me, where you don't always openly know that someone is there for you, but when you need to fall down there's someone there and that's, that means everything.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: That means everything, that's all you could ask for. Right. That's amazing.

Yeah. So let me ask you this. 'cause a lot of people, when I talk about things, people will say, how did you process? And and I was always a journal. And then. Again, I connected with that part in your story because I feel like that was a green flag for me to be like, okay, it's a red flag for me, but green flag to go back to therapy.

'cause I'm like, I'm not writing and I have like two degrees in English in writing. Like, this is crazy. Right? But I would love to hear your [00:48:00] perspective and then we'll talk about where people can connect with you on social and stuff. But I hear this a lot where people are like, well, journaling doesn't work for me, or, and I'm like.

Look, I'm biased, right? And I know you are too. I think it works for everybody. But how would you tell somebody that's like, I can't journal, I can't, everyone can journal. So what are some things people can do? I have some ideas in my mind, but how would you get somebody started so their juices are flowing and they can just get it down on paper?

'cause I think it's so healthy for everyone to do this.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: I am a big letter writing person. I tried writing to Colin as a letter for about a year after he died, and it was awful. I couldn't stand it. I was like, I don't wanna think about writing to you because I can't, and you keep popping up in my Facebook memories and I hate all of this stuff.

And in my case, I had written so much before. That I was able to take previous things that I had written and kind of re like redo them with the knowledge I, terrible knowledge I had all of a sudden. But I think just I also really like making lists. If you were to put at the top of the list things that I miss, and then you just write a list of those and.[00:49:00] 

Each of those words or those phrases is gonna trigger something in your head, and then you can write that down from there. I think there's a great power in single word, like forcing yourself to put just out a single word. It's like if I put down the word like ska music, the phrase ska music, then I can talk about all the concerts that he and I went together and I can talk about all the first CDs we listened to together on the road trips and things like that.

And, it goes along with this, but it's also really gonna hurt for a little bit. It still does when I write about it, when you get into the head spaces of right before and right after. And that's okay because if you pain, feeling pain just means that you can still feel something.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: I could not have said that better myself, Catherine, because I think sometimes we are afraid. I was wondering if you were gonna get to this and you nailed it. I sometimes I think people are afraid to journal because they don't think they have anything to say. We all have stuff to say and then when we start to actually journal or start to make a list or like, I love that idea.

I love the idea of doing like a time or two, like if you think you can't write. Throw three minutes up there, throw a minute up there, start small [00:50:00] and just, you'll be surprised how much comes out of you when you do something like that. Or throw in your favorite song and say, I'm just gonna write for this song.

And what are songs? Three minutes and like, yeah, see what comes outta you. But I think sometimes when we start to do it, it can be painful, but it can be joyful and it can be, and I think. It can be a way for you to feel when you're feeling so numb too, from a loss like this. So you really hit the nail on the head there too.

Catherine, tell us where you where we can connect with you on social and and or email where pe where can people reach out to you? We'll put it in the show notes too for

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Sure I'm on many socials that I'm not active on as many of them anymore just 'cause they all have sad news and I try and be

of the surroundings. Um, but I am under my first and last name. You can find me on Facebook, x Tumblr, Reddit. My, my, you might wanna put my, you can put my, my personal email in the, in the show notes if you want to.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: We will do that, Catherine. Perfect. And just say your name out for them, if they're just [00:51:00] listening, if for your socials or for your handle where you want people to find you.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: So my first name is Catherine, and my last name is Manza, MAND as in dog, ZAKK.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: Alright, we'll put it in the show notes too. Catherine, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing Colin with us today. We really appreciate it.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine: Thank you for having me.

SS8, Ep 9- Katherine Maya View: My pleasure. And thank you guys so much for listening to the Surviving Siblings podcast.