The Moment Everything Changes

What's it like when you find out they're dead?

After Cindy died, we all started to notice the same thing play out over and over. We’d sit down to watch a movie together and as soon as the opening credits stop rolling, we’d learn the mother is dead. Hollywood can be terribly unimaginative in the scripts they approve. Nothing tugs on the heartstrings like a dead mom.

It’s also true that, based on our family’s experience, we’re primed to notice the “Dead Mom” storyline more than someone who hasn’t lost a wife and mother. It’s called the “red car effect” or "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon." I don’t know who Baader or Meinhof are, but I picture their wardrobe being heavy on the white lab coats.

People have a tendency to pay more attention to certain things based on their interests, expectations or recent experiences. When you buy a red car, you notice more red cars. When a mom dies, you notice it in more shitty movies. It happens because the brain has limited processing capacity (mine more than others). We look for patterns we can quickly match to make sense of the world.

While that may or may not be interesting, it’s not the point of this post. When you watch a “Dead Mom” movie, you’ve probably wondered what it would be like to actually hear the horrible news. If you’re a parent, you’ve definitely wondered what it would be like to hear the worst possible news about one of your kids.

Who shows up at your house? What do they say? What does it feel like? What happens afterwards? How would you react?

I’ve been through this twice. Yay me. There were many similarities and some significant differences between the two experiences. I want to share them with you to shed some light on what it’s like. My hope is to pull back the curtain on an incredibly intimate experience and to show you that you can survive if it happens to you.

I’m only going to share my personal experience and not of anyone else that was with me or involved. They can decide if, how and when to share their experience.

Cindy Anne MacKenzie - March 26, 2010

It was Friday night and I was dragged out of sleep by people pounding on my door, ringing my doorbell and calling my name. Their voices seemed to be coming from inside my house. “Jason! Jason! Are you here! Wake up!” I was too confused to be concerned.

I threw a pair of jeans on and staggered down the stairs. I don’t think I had a shirt on and my hair was definitely standing on end. To an outside observer, the scene probably looked like it was lifted straight from an episode of Cops.

There were three Ontario Provincial Police officers standing half in my door with the front door wide open (I didn’t usually lock it). I recognized two of them as Cindy’s co-workers (she was a cop). There was another woman who I didn’t know. She was dressed in her formal uniform and looked like the boss.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The one cop, who I knew, guided me towards the living room and told me I should sit down. He said, “Brother, there’s no good way to say this. Cindy’s dead.”

“What?? What happened?”

“She killed herself?”

“How?”

“She hooked up a tube to her tailpipe, turned the car on and suffocated herself on the exhaust.”

My body responded before my head had any time to process what I’d just heard. I’m not sure if I knew what it meant to have your “blood run cold” before this moment. I get it now.

Here’s exactly what went on in my head in the order it happened.

• “Holy fuck, how am I going to tell the kids?”

• A strong sense of relief washed over me. She had been in so much mental and emotional pain for so long. I was relieved she wasn’t in pain. I was also damn relieved I might have the chance to have a normal life again.

• Then I felt an immense sense of guilt for feeling relieved. What kind of disgusting human being feels relieved at a time like this?

These three reactions took about three seconds. The cops started talking again. Her boss told me how sorry she was and said something about how the OPP would be contacting me to take care of all the details that needed to be taken care of. I remember her sounding like one of Charlie Brown’s teachers.

The cops weren’t there for very long. Once they delivered the news, they left some nice old ladies from Victim Services at the house. They were nice ladies volunteering their time to help people during difficult times. Still, some basic communication training might have come in handy. They basically stared at me with pamphlets in their hands until it got so awkward I asked them to leave.

At some point I called Tanja and she came over. I don’t remember when.

All I could think about was telling the girls who were five and six. What would I say? How would I say it? What if I said the wrong thing? Is there even a right way to say it? Would I completely break down?

Goddamn it I wanted to drink so bad but there was nothing in the house and no way to get any booze. Vodka. I wanted vodka in the worst possible way.

I went up into the girls bedrooms many times and sobbed while I watched them sleeping peacefully. I tried to wrap my mind around the idea they were going to wake up to tragically different lives than they had the day before. Nothing would ever be the same. And I was going to have to be the one to tell them. I was numb.

I kept staring at the clock on the stereo. I almost started to resent it. 4:14 stands out to me for no particular reason. Maybe it’s because it was around the halfway point between finding out and the girls waking up. Every fucking minute that ticked by was a minute closer to the girls’ lives being permanently rearranged.

I actually prayed for the power to go out. That would stop the fucking clock from ticking and maybe I wouldn’t have to tell them. I quickly realized how fucking dumb that was and stopped praying.

I thought about what it was going to be like to go to her funeral. I would have to see her lying there — dead. So would the girls. What would she look like? What would happen? Was I going to freak out? Were they going to freak out? What would I say to all the people that came? Who would come?

I spent a lot of the time remembering our lives together. I thought of the happy times and the not so happy times. I remembered the birth of our beautiful daughters and how excited we were. I remembered the times we laughed together and cried together. I’m sure I smiled while I remembered the funny memories.

I cried a lot. She’d never have the chance to see her girls grow up, get married and have babies of their own. She would not be there to answer the questions that all growing girls have for their moms. She would never answer the phone when they called just to say hi.

I went over every possible permutation of how I would tell them in my head a million times. “I’ll start by saying this…. and then if they say………..I’ll say…………”

My mom and dad had come over by this time. They lived about three and half hours away. Like Roy Orbison, they drove all night to get to us. Thank god.

I actually had to go to the police station at some point in the middle of the night. They sat me down in an interview room and asked me all kinds of “I” dotting and “T” crossing questions as part of their investigation. It was surreal beyond belief.

I kept wondering, “What did she say about me?” Cindy made some wild accusations when she was in the grips of her mental health issues. Were they going to spring some kind of police interrogation trap and get me to incriminate myself? Are you allowed to plead the fifth in Canada? Why would I plead the fifth? I didn’t do anything wrong. Was I getting marched to a jail cell in cuffs? Who the hell would take care of the kids if that happened?

It turned out nothing like that. It was more like a couple of bored bureaucrats in cheap suits asking standard questions and going through the motions. I answered them in a daze. I was back home in 45 minutes or so.

The girls woke up and came downstairs. They were surprised and excited to see Grandma and Grandpa.

The girls played and had breakfast while I tried to figure out how and when to tell them. After they finished eating, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I asked everyone to leave. I wanted to deliver the bombshell to them in private.

I asked them both to sit down on the couch. I was sweating like a pig and my heart was beating a million miles an hour. I was terrified. I wanted to run like a motherfucker but running wasn’t an option. I had to be a dad although I didn’t remember signing up for this part.

I looked at them and they looked at me. “I have some very bad news to tell you.” They both thought I was joking because I tend to be a bit of a jokester. Then I started to cry and they knew whatever was happening was no joke.

”What’s wrong Daddy?”

“Mommy died last night. She’s in heaven now.”

They didn’t ask how. They didn’t say anything at first.

Melody thought about it for a few seconds and asked, “When is she coming back?”

That question hit me like a punch in the stomach. That question never came up in all my mental rehearsals over the previous eight hours. I had no idea what to say so I just told them the truth as I understood it.

“Never. She’s never coming back buddy.”

Chloe Elizabeth MacKenzie - February 1, 2023

Finding out about Chloe’s death was obviously more recent and somehow it’s a lot blurrier at the same time. I’m writing this down for posterity’s sake as much as anything else.

I was walking the dog with a mutual friend of ours. We were almost home and were just about to part ways to go to our respective houses when Tanja FaceTimed me.

Odd.

She normally wouldn’t call me as she knew where I was going and when I’d be back. It was around 8 PM. I picked up and could hear a man’s voice off to the side of the screen.

More odd.

“You need to come home right now, the police are here.”

I was about two minutes from home so I ran all the way home. I actually remember being glad I was fit enough to run fast without stopping.

I assumed it had something to do with Chloe. I was worried but not terrified. It wasn’t even close to the first time I had been worried about Chloe. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time the cops had been over related to Chloe.

I remember scanning the street as I got closer to home looking for the cop car. I was hoping not to see one, which might mean the whole thing was a misunderstanding. Of course, there it was. A big, unmarked, menacing SUV parked right across the street from our house.

I ran up the stairs, unlocked the door and stormed into the house. Tanja and a tall cop named Paul were there. I walked past him and, like Groundhog Day, he also suggested I sit down. It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to start panicking or fearing the worst.

He was an older guy with a very kind face and demeanour. Here’s what I remember:

“There’s been a terrible car accident. Chloe was driving one of the cars.”

Then he said some other shit that I can’t remember at all. Refer back to that Charlie Brown teacher video to get an idea of what it was like. Before long, he got to the punchline that changed everything.

”She didn’t make it.”

She. Didn’t. Make. It.

I’m not sure what it’s like to get Tasered but I think what I felt must have felt close to that. A giant, overwhelming electric shock tore through my body. I ripped my hat and gloves off and got up and started frantically pacing around the house.

I remember saying, “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God” about one hundred fifty times while I paced around. I collapsed on the floor a few times. Tanja was talking to the police officer but I have no recollection of what they were talking about. I’m so grateful she was able to talk to him about the important details while I paced all over the house crying.

Interestingly, I remember being on the floor at one point and wondering, “Do I look like a total fucking idiot right now? Is this reaction real or am I putting on some kind of fucked up performance? I’m actually on all fours. What the fuck am I even doing?”

What I do remember is he had very little other information to share. “Did she suffer?” “Is she mangled?” “Did she die right away?” All he could or would say is, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know any of the details.” How incredibly unhelpful.

With Cindy I went through some brief period of semi-denial. It’s not like I refused to believe she was dead. And yet I couldn’t wrap my mind around the finality of it all.

Not this time. I guess it’s because I’ve experienced it before. The finality of it hit me like a tractor trailer immediately. She’s gone. There’s no fucking around this time. She’s gone forever. Just like that.

I remember repeating the phrase “Just like that” out of the blue many, many times over the next hours and days. It’d just pop out of my mouth while I slowly shook my head.

I think at some point he must have said it was a head on collision with another vehicle. It still hadn’t occurred to me to ask about the other people involved. All I could think of was, “My beautiful daughter is gone. Forever.”

He asked me if I knew a kid named “Jake” who had a tattoo on his shoulder. I thought he might mean a young man Chloe had been dating but I wasn’t sure. I always called him Jacob and I thought they weren’t together any more. I gave him Jacob’s mom’s phone number just in case. At some point we realized it had to be Jacob but I don’t remember how we figured it out.

I asked the cop how he was doing and the news was horrifying. He was in a coma, in ICU with terrible injuries and no one knew what the prognosis was so soon after the accident.

And there were three injured people in the other car as well. What an absolute fucking nightmare. I don’t even remember if at this point we knew the accident was Chloe’s fault.

In very short order, we realized that we’d have to tell Melody. I had to tell her birth mom was dead and now I’m going to have to drop the bomb on her that her sister is dead too. How much can one beautiful soul (hers, not mine) bear in one lifetime? We were about to find out.

What made the situation even worse was that Melody had left the night before for a school camp. She was at a resort four hours north of our home. We were going to have to get up there and tell her before she found out about it all on social media. They weren’t releasing any names and it yet still took no time at all for the news to spread like wildfire.

I can remember thanking Paul the Cop before he left. I also acknowledged that delivering this kind of news must be absolutely fucking awful for him. In a total fucking daze, we plotted our next move. The first thing was to go tell my parents. They live right around the corner from us. I won’t go into the details other than to say it was heartbreaking for us all.

I called and texted some close friends as well. I needed to tell people who loved me. I just needed someone else to know. I’m not sure why that was important in that moment but it was. I guess I didn't want them to hear it from someone else.

It was probably 9:30 at this point and we’d have to leave at 3:30 AM to get up there by 7:30. We figured that’d be early enough to get there before they woke up for the day. We were sitting in our house in shock and I don’t remember a single word we said to one another. Other than me shaking my head repeating, “Just like that.”

Remember how I said I felt numb when Cindy died? This was like that but times ten. I was completely devoid of any feeling other than a crushing weight pressing down on my entire soul. It was like the universe had me in a vice from which there was no escape. Chloe was fucking gone. Forever.

The only thing I remember after that is setting my alarm for 3:30 and popping an Atavan. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to sleep otherwise. It didn’t really work. I still have the alarm set on my phone from that day.

We got up and drove up North. I don’t remember a single thing we talked about other than I’m sure I repeated “Just like that….” more than once. We must have rehearsed what we were going to say to Melody. I remember it somehow seeming like we’d never get there and that we were also getting there way too fast.

When Cindy died, the clock was my enemy. It just sat there, devoid of emotion, mindlessly and relentlessly reminding me of what I had to do. This time it was the fucking GPS. Two hours remaining. One hour remaining. Thirty minutes remaining. 2 minutes remaining. “You’ve arrived at your destination". Isn’t a destination somewhere you actually want to go? Fuck you GPS. FUCK YOU.

We pulled into the parking lot and found someone who worked there. She hopped in a golf cart and we followed her to the building Melody was staying in. I wanted to puke all over myself. I couldn’t believe I had to do this to her again.

We walked in and her teachers were awake. We told them why we were there and they gasped and started crying. They went to get Melody and we sat there waiting for her footsteps. I wanted to cry, scream and jet puke and not in that order. All at the same time.

I was much less concerned about how I reacted this time. I’ve learned enough over the years that it really doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I’m myself and open and honest about what I’m thinking and feeling. I was hoping I didn’t puke on the floor though. That probably would have been awkward.

We heard noise behind the door and there she was. I was gripping on the back of the chair so hard my knuckles were white. She looked surprised and happy to see us. “Hey. What are you guys doing here?”

I remember Tanja saying, “We have some terrible news.” I followed it up with “Chloe died in a car accident last night.”

I won’t say any more about Melody’s reaction other than to say that telling her was the worst experience of my entire life. I can’t imagine anything ever being more difficult.

One thing was different this time. She didn’t ask, “When is she coming back?”

Are There Movies Like This? Not Many.

When you learn you’ve lost someone it has a massive physical, mental and emotional impact. It can feel like your entire being is short circuiting. There’s way too much stimulus to even begin to process it in the moment.

It’s almost impossible to comprehend how profoundly our worlds can change from one moment to the next. One moment, everything is normal. And then, in as little time as it takes to say, “She didn’t make it,” everything is different forever. You know right away that every single thing will be different but you have no idea how. In the moment you only know the specifics of one thing: the person you loved is gone.

Who knows how you’ll respond to such terrible news. I’m sure reactions range from stoic to screaming to vomiting to curling up in a catatonic state. As long as you’re not harming yourself or others, there’s no right or wrong way to react. Don’t judge yourself or anyone else for what they say or do in the moment. Your emotional experience is as legitimate to you as anyone else’s is to them.

It’s 7:00 PM exactly right now. In nineteen minutes it will be five weeks to the minute when Chloe died. In that time we’ve watched a couple of movies. I definitely haven’t watched one where the mother AND daughter have died. I know that because If I did, the “red car effect” would ensure I remembered it.

I love you Chloe and I always will. I love you too Cindy. And I know you both love being together again.❤️