On today’s episode of The Confluence: Testimony from the defense has concluded in the trial over how Pennsylvania funds its education system; we speak to a researcher about the potential for more people to experience prolonged grief after losing loved ones to COVID-19; and a look at Mehmet Oz’s outsider campaign to become Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate primary.
My Mother Died When I Was 7. Iâm Grieving 37 Years Later.
Delayed grief is sometimes triggered by an event later in life, experts say.
By Nicole Johnson
Iâm in my basement looking for a file when I stumble upon the cards and pictures â a small manila envelope containing what is left of my mother. She died at 30 in an apartment in Van Nuys, Calif., in April 1983. I donât even know the exact date.
My brother and I were told that her biker boyfriend, a guy named Eddie, found her dead in the shower. I was 7.
I lived with my grandparents, my state-appointed guardians in my motherâs absence, in a city 15 minutes outside of Boston. After school and on many weekends, I was also cared for by my foster mother, Esther. The state paid for her to help my grandparents. It was also the state that had removed my brother and me from the apartment we shared with my mother, Denise, just before my first birthday. Denise was an addict.