On death, bereavement, and trauma-infused admin
Trigger warning: this post includes themes that some individuals may find distressing. If this raises any issues for you, resources are available on the Lifeline website, or call 13 11 14 (Australia).
Exactly 20 years ago, on 29th March 2005, I came home from my first day in a new job. I remember it was raining, and the drive home was stressful. About half an hour later the phone rang with the news that mum had passed away. She died by suicide, and had been found at home by my nanna and a friend.
The next few weeks were a blur of funeral arrangements, phone calls, and surreal moments that ranged from arguments with a church pastor about an ABBA song we wanted for the service, to standing in mum’s little flat with my siblings in the room where she died, wondering which cupboards to sort through first.
What people don’t tell you about death is the sheer amount of admin it generates – not only from the person who has died, but also for those who are bereaved. As if admin weren’t painful enough, now it is trauma-infused, and every email takes twice as long to write whilst you find the words to say “my mum just died” and then awkwardly segue to the request or information you need. Within 12 hours I had called my new boss to explain why I wouldn’t be at work that day; that week I emailed the course director of the postgrad diploma I was studying to say why I wouldn’t be at next week’s evening classes; weeks later, when my mum’s tiny red car transferred ownership to me, I ticked the box that indicated ‘death of owner’ as the reason for transfer. And so it goes on. My sister was the real trooper, making call after call to utility and insurance call centres; I can still hear her saying again and again, to each new person on the phone, “No, she’s not with us any more”.
I hadn’t thought about these moments for years until I attended an online forum recently where two students presented their research into student bereavement at university. I won’t speak for them here, as I’m hoping they will share their findings and recommendations more widely in the future, but their messages were clear: death and bereavement is common at university, as it is throughout all facets of life, and we do not always respond in the most helpful ways. Tutors and lecturers may want to help but feel poorly equipped, and whilst administrative supports are there, they can be hard to navigate and still leave some students feeling like they have to explain themselves whilst navigating grief and a pile of admin that feels a world away from the automated reminders about overdue assignments.
Death continues to impact students even when teachers and administrators have long approved and forgotten about ‘special consideration’ forms and deadline extensions. In long-form qualitative interviews about student experience, death rears its head with surprising frequency, casually mentioned by one student in a discussion group (“Well, I pretty much wrote off my exams after mum’s diagnosis”) or appearing as a recurring motif in a depth interview with a postgrad who had lost a parent in high school and re-visited the trauma every time she was asked to reflect on school for her teaching degree. Sometimes there are grateful acknowledgements of empathetic tutors whose kind words are still remembered; others are left wondering whether they should have been studying at all.
Perhaps most challenging is when routines return to ‘normal’ whilst the processes of grief follow their own unique timelines. Those immediate assignment extensions and kind words are important, but for the bereaved, support may still be needed at the most unexpected moments. A couple of months after we farewelled mum I found myself standing outside the office in tears, unable to go back inside. Nothing had happened, no one had said anything, but there it was, so inconveniently timed in this professional setting. When I called one of my new colleagues, there was no answer, so I just stayed outside until it passed. No one had ever mentioned my mum’s death since I had returned to work, and it was never raised again, not even quietly and privately. They were probably trying to be respectful and sensitive, but it came across as deafening silence.
There are many evidence-based resources out there on dealing with grief in the workplace, and some great information on most university websites, if you seek it out. I think what’s missing is the human acknowledgement that it takes more than policy and administrative processes to support people; this is hard for everyone, from the grieving student, to the tutor who wants to say the right thing, to the administrator processing sensitive documents, and the counselling teams who do such a wonderful job - but only if students can find their way to see them. We need to talk more about this, not only as part of our general mental health and wellbeing support, but also because death touches everyone, more often than we would like, and it doesn’t wait around for exams and deadlines to be over before it arrives.
For now, I’d like to say thank you (again) to all the people who reached out 20 years ago, even if we didn’t really know each other that well. Thank you to the tutor who didn’t make a fuss, the classmates who kindly enquired, the partner who moved an important exam to be close by for the funeral, the friends who dropped everything to drop by. Thank you to the friend who messages me every year without fail to say she knows this is the day - even in years when I have forgotten.
Thank you to my brothers and sister for being such an important part of a healthy grieving process, full of black humour, inappropriate jokes and affectionate remembering. And to Kath Blakemore, legend of the local community and baker of rock-hard homemade bread, Thank You For the Music. Your voice lives on, louder and more joyful than ever, in those of us who remember you.