Amanda Rae Elden Eulogy
I am Kyle Leia, Amanda’s cousin on her dad’s side. This is for our dear Amanda Rae and for all of us here today to collectively grieve and heal. Auntie Patti and Uncle Ab, she will always be your little girl, and Matt she will always be your sister, Leila your mom, Roman your Mimi, us our cousin, your granddaughter, niece, and others your friend. She is a beautiful person and will forever be deeply missed and loved by us all, and her love lives on in us eternally.
I remember her as a little girl. Precious cherub cheeks with sweet brown freckles spread across like stars in the sky. Her dark tiny curls and full pink lips. As kids we (Katy, Kacey, Amanda, and me) played for hours at Grandma Kay’s and Grandpa Joe’s on Park Point - us girls the 4th generation of Park Pointer’s. Grandma had old sheer curtains we would wrap around us and create worlds where we were princesses and there was magic everywhere. We played with Calico Critters, fancy collectable Madame Alexander dolls, and Muffy Bears for days together. We also swam on the beach and built sandcastles and roasted marshmallows and hot dogs over a bonfire. Once I remember Uncle Ab taking us down to the end of Park Point to Pine Forest and building a raft out of washed up wood which we took miles all the way back to our grandparents - we felt like we were Huckleberry Finn or the Boxcar children. It was the best time, an amazing childhood! Her parents gave her so much and loved her to the moon, they provided for her in all the ways a child deserves.
I remember Amanda had tiny feet that fit beautifully into those cute little jelly shoes with pointy toes that were popular in the 80’s. I was jealous of both (the jellies and her tiny feet) - our family would joke and tease me about my big, long, skinny feet with the Elden “monkey-toe,” the crazy long second toe that reaches strangely far beyond beyond the other toes, they made fun of my feet, called them “oar boats!” My poor daughter inherited it from me too! Amanda had smaller feet and only inherited just one Elden “monkey toe,” and funnily, one ear from her mom and one ear from her dad. It’s interesting the things we inherit. Leila (Amanda’s daughter), I am wearing a bracelet that my daughter and I both have that states, “Mother the best within you is the best within me.” And you, despite all the challenges you have faced, are a beautiful, loving, compassionate person and an amazing mom to Roman. The best of you mom lives on in you.
An inherited thread that runs through the Elden side of our family is substance misuse or addiction and dying far too young and tragically. To lose a loved one in this manner is a severing loss, a violent grief! So much life left to live, so much potential squelched. Their loved ones and own children and grandchildren, abandoned. I work in the Public Health and Human Services field and did you know that addiction and serious and persistant mental illness are called diseases of despair and deaths from overdose and by suicide are called deaths of despair. I cannot think of a better term than deaths of despair because no matter the final cause, if you trace it back, despair is what they died from. Despair.
In our family history our grandfather Joe lost his dad tragically in 1940 when he was only 10 years old from a car accident. What a trauma his mother Corolyn (Coco, who our aunt is named after), his sister Patsy, and he endured. Not surprisingly our great grandmother Corolyn was in immense pain, deep despair. Following this, she drank, partied, had lots of boyfriends, rode bikes, wore pants, was skilled at sailing in Lake Superior, and was an avid and damn good trap shooter…all of this not common or proper for a woman, especially in the 30’s and 40’s. A rebel trying to survive the horror she endured. She was likely shamed and looked down upon. Others had to tend to her children. She was wild and I know I have this wildness in me too - her spirit, her tomboy side, her feistiness and the badass fighter in her…and it absolutely was in Amanda too! Great grandma Coco also died tragically in 1946 at only 34 years old in a boat accident involving alcohol. She drowned in the bay of Lake Superior. My grandpa was barely 16, an orphan taken in by his grandma Mary. In the next generation, Matthew Elden died by suicide at 24 years old in some back woods on Park Point, his daughter Katy born only 6 months later, never met her dad….he had this wildness in him too….my father was the one, along with a childhood friend who found his brother dead and pulled him out of the car…another trauma…my own parents struggled with addiction (but thankfully have lived and now walk the recovery path in their own ways) but due to this, grandma and grandpa Elden raised me from 8th-12th grade. Then our generation…my sister Jody, who used to hang out and party with Amanda a lot back in the day, died of a heroin overdose at only 32 in 2017....And now yet another beautiful soul from our family, gone too soon, Amanda!! This is enduring and repeated trauma for our family. This isn’t just limited to our family. We see so many people suffering, struggling, and the endless loved ones whose faces emerge on obituary pages that the opioid epidemic has obliterated everywhere! Everyone is touched by this. These are people suffering from the disease of addiction but they are NOT their addiction, they are so much more. Healing and recovery requires bravery and truth-telling - to not wrap the disease of addiction in shame but to acknowledge its roots and impact. Just like with cancer or diabetes, not one of these people with addiction wants to have this disease! Yet the stigma, the judgment, and the shame that surrounds it is astounding. Mother Teresa said, “If you are busy judging people, you have no time to love them.” To simply love them and show compassion in their sickness is the best and sometimes the only thing you can do for a person suffering with addiction.
And don’t you feel bad if your relationship with her was strained, had to be severed, or you needed to have boundaries…that is what happens with addiction. We all do our best given a very difficult situation. No one here needs to sit with any regret. Let that go! The pain you endured and any way you had to protect your own heart is valid! Instead, fill yourself with the goal to act towards others with love, compassion, and kindness no matter what. The line between apathy and compassion is thin. May you hold on to compassion.
As we grew older Amanda was always so cool. Even though she was younger than me by nearly 2 years, she was somehow always cooler, edgier. She knew the best music and movies. She was a deeply feeling and sensitive person. A free spirit. A rebel. She was fearless and thought she was invincible. She longed to live, to be alive and experience all life had to offer. To be free! Sometimes, especially when we are young, through music, art, film, and also drugs/alcohol, parts of us can awaken. And we can also fall into the allure of escaping the difficulty of reality, of coping with our inevitable pain with drugs/alcohol. This is the pattern Amanda got sucked into.
We are not one dimensional beings, we are multidimensional. Her Facebook is an open book to the many layers and parts of Amanda. It is a tapestry capturing her life woven together. From photos and posts about her beloved grandson Roman and daughter Leila, it was clear the depth of love she had for them. One states, “My favorite picture of Roman” another, “My beautiful daughter and her beautiful cat.” Then of course her own precious kitties and many cute + funny memes about cats. She posted a lot of scripture, too. Highlighting her faith. She was funny, real, and raw. She was self-deprecating in the best way. She knew her struggles and was humorous about herself. One example is a post: “Going to rock bottom, you guys need anything?” Another is a photo of Jesus saying, “I’m telling dad on you guys.” Another is a photo of a cop pulling over a person with a cat face pasted on as its head, laughing, and the cop states, “Any drugs or alcohol” and the cat, looking maniacal says, “Sure I’ll take whatever you got!” Another is a photo of a human that looks emaciated and skeletal saying “Stop giving me your toughest battles” and a photo of Jesus responding, “Literally just fold the laundry. It’s already washed and dried. Just put it away.”
These all make me laugh and also feel relatable…because life is hard. And sometimes we humans can barely take even the small challenges, such as simply folding the laundry much less the real devastating stuff we are given that is tough for anyone to navigate and respond to skillfully. And humor is an amazing way to get through!! She was good at that!
On one Facebook post she shares the following scripture: “Though I fall, I will rise again.” – Micah 7:8 I remember sometime 20ish years ago when she nearly died when living in Duluth. I visited her in the hospital. She had OD'd, I was so upset and concerned and she was like, “damn, I effed up but I’m here, and I want to do better.” She was a survivor, she was tough, she kept rising, living, trying. From afar I could see she was especially inspired to be there for Leila and Roman and have a relationship with them. She recently reached out to me to say “hey cousin I’m sober now I want to see you when I’m in Duluth, you’re so beautiful.” I found a letter from when we were teenagers and she was in trouble and sent away somewhere to get help, talking about how she missed her mom and dad and wanted to do better! She was proud that she had been sober for 1 month.
Addiction ravages lives, is a destroyer of light and truth and relationships. Although we lost Amanda officially May 28th, in many ways we lost her and have grieved her life long ago and over and over to addiction. She walked away from us slowly, her leaving was a gradual disappearance into shadows….a fading of color and light...we watched, reached out to her, tried to love her and hold her close, but addiction stole her away.
Everyone in this room has likely been touched by addiction, whether your own struggle or that of someone you love. And for those of you who have overcome addiction this is one of the BIGGEST VICTORIES accomplished. Even for Amanda and others we have lost. Each day they lived is a victory. Any hour they didn’t use, any stretch of time they could be sober, present and connected, these are all sacred moments that are precious and to never forget!
To love someone who has the disease of severe addiction is like living with a person in prolonged hospice. You see them sick and withering away, dangling at the edge of life, staring into death every time they use. Daily, it is in the forefront of your mind and heart that you could lose your loved one at any time. You experience many false alarms, worries, and days and hours of anxiety where you fear this could be the day you learn your loved one died from an overdose. And then there may be days, weeks, longer stretches of sobriety, of hope, of rebuilding trust when you have them back, to then have it crash down again. This is a horrendous reality to endure and any close family member or friend who has lived this knows the depth of pain it causes. People are not themselves. They do things that hurt and devastate the ones they love and that love them the most. This is part of the disease of addiction. And no matter how long this lasts, you can never, ever prepare yourself for the pain of their death.
Why? Where does it begin? It is simple, pain. Renowned addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté specializes in trauma, addiction, stress and childhood development, states, “Addiction begins with solving a problem, and the problem is that of human pain, emotional pain. The first question is not why the addiction; it's why the pain?”
Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist with a colored history and struggle with heroin said, “All the contortions we go through just not to be ourselves for a few hours!” Why would someone not want to be themselves? Because they are in too much distress, too much pain. What is Addiction? [Gabor Maté]
Dr. Daniel Sumrok, director of the Center for Addiction Sciences said addiction shouldn’t be called “addiction”. It should be called “ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking”. And ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking is a normal response to adversity, trauma, distress, and emotional pain, “just like bleeding is a normal response to being stabbed.”
And we all deserve to seek comfort for our pain….we all DO seek comfort for our pain. And it can either be in the form of self-destructive/self-lacerating methods or life-giving/nourishing methods – or perhaps, as is the case with most of us, it falls along a spectrum somewhere in-between….shopping, gambling, work addiction, food, sex, perfectionism, the internet….
We want so badly to blame. Others, ourselves. How did I fail, fall short? If only I would have been there more. My mistakes. Them. If only they would have just stopped. It is selfish and hurtful. Those people they hang out with. Bad influences, they are evil. The drug dealers…
Ani DiFranco, an artist we all loved and aunt Patti once took us all to one of her concerts when we were teens, said:
“you can't really place blame 'cause blame is much too messy some was bound to get on you
while you were trying to put it on me why do you try to hold on to what you'll never get a hold on
you wouldn't try to put the ocean in a paper cup”
This is so large, our experience as humans contains inevitable suffering and pain. A person may cause harm and destruction to another and this typically comes from the place of their own unhealed pain. It is said that hurt people, hurt people. Healing is realizing that no blame in the world can fix what happened, change mistakes, take back wounds - it’s no one’s fault. Not your fault, not your parent’s fault. It is unconsciousness, it is pain turned inside out and not processed or healed.
Often it is the case with addiction that shame is the pain that shows up when people become sober. They have hurt others, need to make amends, some bridges have been burned. Many things need to be repaired…and this is tough to walk through. Guilt is “I have done something wrong,” shame is "I AM WRONG!” - it is a sense of deep disconnection, worthlessness, brokenness, of deep distress and suffering. I believe that this is what Amanda and my sister most grappled with. They didn’t know how to open back up and receive all the love and support they had before them. They were and are beautiful and whole people. Their addiction stole their light. If only they could have known the power of their own light. The poet Hafiz said, “If only I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being”
Our own healing is the most revolutionary act we can embark upon. It is sitting with pain, ours and others - and the pain that we inherited - staring it in the eyes with compassion and love and recognizing our irrevocable wholeness and light. Rilke said, '“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
Our human experience will contain grief, upon grief, upon grief, but what if, instead of being swallowed by it, we can transform through the fire of our pain? Recovery is possible, is real, and is reachable. Never give up on yourself or others!
It’s time for us to break this chain, this intergenerational cycle, and to heal these ancient wounds and move forward in wholeness (the dark and the light, the pain and the joy), to open space in our hearts for all of it. Glennon Doyle says, “I can feel everything and survive. What I thought would kill me, didn't. Every time I said to myself: I can't take this anymore — I was wrong. The truth was that I could and did take it all — and I kept surviving. Surviving again and again made me less afraid of myself, of other people, of life. I learned that I'd never be free from pain but I could be free from the fear of pain, and that was enough. I can use pain to become. I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. Whether I like it or not, pain is the fuel of revolution. Everything I need to become the person I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.” How do we do this? One simple way is through compassion and it must start with ourselves. I offer this profound and short practice as we all sit here, in our grief and the suffering of the tragic loss of our dear Amanda: Kristin Neff”s Self-compassion Break
1. This is a moment of suffering 2. Suffering is a part of life 3. May I be kind to myself
In the Bible, Lamentations 3:28 states: “When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: wait for hope to appear.”
May we all create space for compassionately being with our pain, for our healing, and for hope to appear. Dear Amanda may you now rest in peace, free from your suffering. May you know the depths of love we all hold for you. May we all honor Amanda by being more compassionate, less judgmental, and more loving to ourselves and all those suffering in this world! May we bring light wherever we go. And may Amanda’s, now unobstructed, love, light, humor, and presence be with us, ever-near!
S A C R E D G R I E F S O N G
by: Kyle Leia
This grief
is a sacred song
I hold dear for the rest of my life
I find myself humming
at unexpected moments
flashes of you arise
you are here
a flicker
a flame
that lives eternally
(this love)
beyond space and time
ever-near
ever-after
This grief does not go away
I cannot wish it away
(do not want to)
for it is inextricably connected
to our love
profoundly
and as unbreakable
as water is to
wave is to
Ocean
