Dawn Picken

there will never be closure

Today is New Year’s eve in New Zealand.

I’m back home in the Northland after being away for the past week.

In a way it feels as I’ve been out of my body for the previous months while my dear friend, Dawn Picken, experienced a precipitous decline in her health due to an inherited liver disease which had a fatal prognosis. On December 26th she died; her daughter Fiona and I were with her. (refer to my previous Substack entry where there are thoughts about Dawn and links to the resources that tell her story)

Dawn and I had been on a journey together for the last 11.5 years after being introduced by a mutual American friend immediately upon my landing in New Zealand, where she had already been for six months. Given the fact that we immediately hit it off, anyone who knows Dawn can imagine how our relationship developed. Quickly and deeply. Simply, we became family. Sometimes there were gaps between physical visits, living five hours away from each other, but we stayed in contact— her forever gifted at maintaining connections with her friends all over the world.

I still laugh remembering one of our very early conversations when I had yet to realize what an avid runner she was. She was expressing some stress about running a half marathon in the not too distant future. Automatically assuming it was her first, I imparted a wee bit of reassurance based on my experience having run one a couple years before that. (cue running friends’ hysterical laughter) Don’t worry, I’ve routinely apologized for that faux pas and complimented her on her grace for accepting said reassurance.

Dawn was a force of nature.

To witness her decisions and steps as she moved forward with two young children, after recently being widowed, was more than inspiring. When most of us would have been paralyzed by all of the “what ifs” about the future, she took time off as long as she could, enjoying skipping from country to country, reconnecting with previous friends and colleagues, making new friends, and experiencing the adventures and travel with her children and then, step by step, gradually built her professional life in New Zealand.

I was in awe of her ability to not get lost in the stress and uncertainty of it all. Mostly, I think she physically ran the worry out of herself. And good on her for that skill.

Even at the end of her life she didn’t obsess about what it would mean. She dealt with it head on, having always prepared her children and friends for its eventuality. We knew it. We didn’t want to believe it. She shared with me, “Fi tells me, aw don’t worry Mom, you are going to be here until you’re 100.”

After I started The Death Dialogues Project, on the heels of experiencing my own personal devastating loss, we began to process in a deeper fashion surrounding death and grief—beyond our own stories. I promised her that if at all possible I would be there to support and take care of her at the end of her life. My nursing experience had just lasted long enough that it can naturally kick in during times of need; especially when I love that person deeply.

After my podcast started, Dawn was one of my first guests. Shortly after that episode, I noticed she started wearing her wedding ring from Sean all of the time. She had already been working on her book, Love, Loss and Lifelines. Forever transparent about her own story, more and more she worked in spaces where she could help others surrounding grief over the past several years and became a champion of encouraging people to tell their stories which is also the foundation of my project.

My own book release for Death and its Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Beautiful Lessons was hijacked by covid and we were going to hit the road in 2023 and take our books around New Zealand, while also providing workshops on grief/end of life/death. She role-modeled how to put our material out there from a place that put ego aside and focused on wanting others to receive the care we meant to give in our writing.

I needed her example and teased her about why we didn’t plan for her to release her book first so I could constantly workshop off of her. However, I do think she did get a wee bit of speed off my tailwind. As I was wrapping up my book being published she went into overdrive to get hers to publication. It felt like a sucker-punch when she said in late October, “I always said I had to finish the book {that would be released the next week} before I died. Maybe I should have dragged it out longer…”

My family are out in a pristine setting on the coast of New Zealand enjoying each others’ company. They will be back home tomorrow. I had to have 24 hours and just sit with the impact of what Dawn has been through over the past months. This morning I debriefed over a video chat with a dear friend of Dawn’s who is now also my dear friend— Dawn would love that. She served as my back-up when I wasn’t with Dawn.

Today is the first time I’ve had alone to personally process since I arrived with Dawn for our final time together a week ago. Her last truly coherent words to me were on my arrival when she lit up and simply said with a sigh, “Becky.” Although, to be honest, her eyebrows spoke to me even near the completion of her journey when I’d ask, “Do you want a foot-rub?” The affirmative vocal responses turned to eyebrow lifts.

Dawn and I were both words people, so after the release felt from that lengthy emotional conversation, I felt the need to write. Please save the critiques as I’m just writing in flow right now. No obituary format is needed. Want to learn more about Dawn? Google her. Go to her own writing in her Bay of Plenty Times columns, her Adventure Mom blog, her Substack, her book, her Facebook posts, her LinkedIn. As she infers in the video attached to the BOP Times pieces about her journey, if you ever want to know what her opinion was about anything, look for it, you can probably find it.

Part of my self-care, my grounding and recentering, is getting these words out today. There will never be enough words and I’m sure I’ll be sharing “Dawn-isms” for the rest of my life, but there was something that seemed necessary to my process about taking to the page today.

No, it isn’t about closure. There will never be a full closure when a part of your heart dies. Moreso, honoring Dawn’s awareness that for the some of us, the written word is our medicine and today, the prescription was to lay a fraction of what’s churning within me on the page. Mind you, there is so much more …

Anger: surrounding why couldn’t this have been avoided. Disbelief: her spirit and body seemed invincible. And so many emotions and thoughts stirring around inside me, the majority which have yet to latch onto words.

For certain, I know Dawn would want for me, for us all, to walk into this New Year looking ahead to a new dawn of our lives, knowing her love is always with us.

She’d want us to use our grief and heartache to propel us forward, not hold us back.

She’d tell us that she’s always with us and to look for her in the early morning sky and other spaces in nature.

She’d say to never dismiss that strong feeling you may get when you immediately think she could be nudging you. (((she is)))

Right now, I just needed to tell you and her I love and admire her so very much. She became a sister to me, a partner in the writing and parenting and coping of life– through the mire and the miracles.

As I shared in the most recent Caring Bridge update I put up, we had found a poignant scrawl in her bedside notepad where she’d been briefly documenting the day to day doctor visits (roller coaster ride) that was intermingled with her frustration and insight:

December 8, 2022

When I'm gone: but not forever
Dawn Picken

Cry and wail, moan and shriek
ask "why?"
But not forever.

Lament the times that will not happen,
the memories that will not transpire.
With me.

Curse fate for torching the plans we made, 
pulverizing them to grit and ash
But not forever.

***

Fully realizing that right now it feels like I could write nonstop and it wouldn’t be enough to share the breadth and depth of the facts and feelings I’m holding around Dawn and her end of life experience, I will stop now. But not forever.

I’ve met my self-imposed deadline that would leave me time to wrap this year by personally exploring some of its lessons and intentions for moving forward in 2023.

May we all press our manifestation buttons for a kinder and gentler 2023.

May we all send our love and support out to Dawn’s children and loved ones.

May we settle deep within ourselves and honestly explore the nooks and crannies of our beings to find sparks for change that will soothe us as if grace has visited our lives.

See you next year.

With all love,

Becky