Trigger warning: subjects about death, murder, suicide, toxic relationships
I made a copy of this blog post with an audio version on my Substack blog if you rather listen to the story!
Recently, I had one of my friends over for a tattoo session. As she entered my room for the procedure, she saw that big, bold, horror-like painting. The one I have a mixed relationship with. I hid it for years after creating it. I put it back on my walls after moving. Sometimes I avoid looking at it. Sometimes I’m proud of it. It’s obviously because of the story behind it. Also because it’s not ‘‘perfect’’ in terms of techniques.
I appreciated her taking the time looking at it, without saying a word. Just, analyzing it. Then, I felt a bit embarassed as it’s quite the statement. I started explaining it to her poorly, even if we both speak French and she’s aware of the tragedy behind it. I hated my words on how I was breaking down the concept and the whys. But she kept asking questions and was very understanding in her own way. Her attitude made me feel safe sharing that with her, even done in a way I didn’t like. But I guess I was caught out of surprise because I’m so used to see the painting.
It’s called ‘‘Death’s Weight’’. Completed in 2018. It’s about the weight you carry on your back when you have to deal with grief. The emptiness that shows on your face, where you kind of wish you were in their place instead, to not feel these emotions any longer. Their ghosts are haunting you everyday, whispering and screaming memories you shared with them. The way they appear in your dreams and make you think for a minute in the morning - wait, are they back? - and leaving unanswered questions waking up.
The story behind the characters
There is obviously the character that griefs - me. Her back is open wide, liberating ghosts from those who she misses. I want to bring your attention to the middle character, it’s an angel that can only see, is crying, and was shot in her forehead. It’s one of my best friends, but also her boyfriend and her sister.
I met the sisters in the summer of 2006. I was new in town. I was biking in the streets of my neighboorhood as a kid with another friend I met at summer camp earlier that day. They were living the street right after crossing that boulevard from my house. They were playing in their garage alley. My summer camp friend knew them well since they were going to the same school and lived close by too. We talked and laughed. One of the sisters was a bit older than us. I thought she was so cool, especially how she had this short haircut with her perfect bangs. She carried this Troll figurine with lime green hair, presented him to me and she made a cute grimace. Her younger sibling was just laughing at anything she said. This younger sister was born just a few months later than I was, and we looked alike, except that she was already tall for her age. Blue eyes, light brown hair with red highlights under the sun, little freckles to decorate our noses.
Time passes, and I ended up going to the same school they all went, for high school. (It’s a private all-girls school that supports elementary and secondary education). That’s when we got lots closer, as we took the same bus ride back home and decided often we would either go to her place, or mine. Or both during the same day. I was just, never ever bored with my friend. We laughed so much. I could be a broody emotional pre-teen at times, and she was there to make me smile. We would invent and write stupid comedic stories and film hilarious skits on my digital camera to post on Facebook and make our friends laugh. We had imagination for everything. We were both discovering rock and metal music, fan girling over band members. Chatting and raving about our first crushes and parties with them. Catching up on MSN when we could not see each other. Her family often invited me to their activities, mine too. Whatever it was, we were truly always having a good time.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a sense of sisterhood. People often mistook us for being in the same family, because of our similar appearance. Even her older sister said once, at my friend’s family lunch after her birthday party that I was invited to, that I was kind of their fourth adopted sister. (They were three sisters, my friend was the youngest one). I never forgot that, since I’m the middle child between two boys - I adore my brothers, but I felt great being an extended sister.
Then at one point, I started being a full-on emo kid that needed to dye her hair red, having a sense of identity, and private school just could not let me do that at the time. I changed school, but that move also gave me the ability to graduate early and go to the next step in my education at only 16 years old, before all my friends: college! I went to learn 3D animation and all the art about making games and movies in a big city.
I was back home for the holidays in winter 2013-2014. It’s last time we saw each other. She went to my place, we were planning to do rebellious stuff teens do, but instead, we talked for hours. Just about everything. We missed each other. She mentionned to me about this boy that was acting a weird way to her, like, throwing rocks at her window at night and calling her multiple times on the family landline. But she already had a special someone, her boyfriend since we were 13 years old. At the time of the discussion, we kinda just shrug it off. Maked fun of him. We didn’t think much of it. After our talk, it was the middle of the night and took off in the cold winter to go home get some sleep. She forgot her bracelets at my place, and right before she left, she gave me this cupcake charm and hung it on my black knitted-sweater with skulls - her favorite. Then a hug that I’d never think it would be the last. We were 17 years old.
I go back to school few days after. Doing all the learning, and dealing with an extremely toxic relationship when my day at school was done. February 11th 2014 arrives. I’m having mid-terms exams all day. At the time, phones were mostly used for their main purposes, and it was my first time having a personal one since I was away from my family. It was off the whole time I was doing my exams. Then, I brave the winter storm and go back to my apartment, only to be bombarded with missed phone calls and messages on Facebook. I was way too tired to listen to all my voice mails, went on Facebook instead on my laptop, and that’s where I saw the first message on my friend’s wall. A classmate wrote to her, that they can’t believe she’s gone. I thought it was just one of her comedic skits in class she made, like a class inside-joke. I saw one or two more. A bit weirded out, I decided to listen to my voice messages. My dear friends from that school, crying, telling me NOT to open Facebook. That they are so, so sorry for me. Wishing me condoleances. Then I get it, deciding to confirm one last time - the local news posted about it.
She’s gone. With her sister and her boyfriend.
They were murdered.
It’s been 11 years, and I still can’t wrap my head about it sometimes. It’s so fucked up. The guy that she mentionned to me that he was a bit weird last time, and his best friend. Because she didn’t like him back and stayed with the one she truly loved.
Remember I was dealing with a toxic boyfriend at the time? His response to all this was: ‘‘Well, you haven’t talked to her in about two weeks, so she’s not even one of your best friends, you pretend it to have attention.’’ So of course at the time, I thought I was exaggerating my reaction and because of that, I kept all my emotions about it, was closed like a shell about it. All the drawings, the poems, the diary entries were hidden from everybody. For years, I felt like I didn’t deserve to grief, that it wasn’t my place to feel those things.
Two weeks, maybe three, prior to this event, I was walking back from school, and I bumped into a familiar face from high school. I was surprised to see her in this city, since it’s a bit far from our hometown. We used to invite each other to parties, and she had this edgy style too. But I was not extremely close to her either. I was glad to see her here though, so we started hanging out from time to time in between my school days and homeworks. I remember her telling me she dropped out of school, and she was sent here to her dad’s place. She had a substance abuse problem, and her family tried to put her in situations where she would be sober, but it didn’t work, since she offered me to do ketamine and other drugs a bunch of times (which I refused).
A week before the fatal day, she was asking me about this guy, and about my friend. I was surprised she asked me about her since they were not very close, but my best friend was kind enough to talk to everybody at school. I told her at the time that we were still close, that I chatted with her a bit a few days ago on Facebook Messenger and that we saw each other during my winter break. I remember her asking me immediately about the murderer, ‘‘Has she mentionned this guy once?’’ and I told her yes, but she was not interested. Then she tells me that he’s truly in love with my friend. It was weird to me to talk about him, because she already has a boyfriend? The conversation ends there, she isn’t pushing for much more information, I guess from my reaction she could tell I would not feed what she wanted to hear from me.
The very next day after the murder, February 12th, this girl texts me that she needs to show me something and will bring her laptop to my place after I’m done with school. I accepted. She comes to my place, then first shows me a tattoo she did on herself, on her finger, the date February 11th 2014. My inital reaction was ‘‘Oh that’s nice of you to do that!’’ but then everything changes after she tells me to open her laptop and read the conversation between her and him. The murderer.
One year of conversations between them, thinking about numerous plans on how to kill my friend and her family. Any gory thing you want to imagine, it was there. I won’t give any details about it, but you can imagine how surreal it felt to me to read this. I could only say ‘‘But why haven’t you told anyone about this? Like, an adult you’re close to at least?’’ She then told me that she was scared of being murdered by him too if she did not cooperate. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not sure what I would have done in this situation as a 17 years old. But, in my eyes, she had at least a bit more power than anyone else in the situation, to make a difference, to change something about it. I told her that I don’t think I ever want to see her again. She took off and we never saw each other. She took her own life three or four years later, I imagine mostly because of the guilt she was carrying from the situation. She was dating the guy’s best friend, the accomplice, and one other girl was dating the ‘‘main’’ guy. Mind you, this other girl was going to our private school too, knew my friend and never had any problems with her. They were four into that whole mess.
In some strange way, I felt that receiving the information just the day after the murder, made me feel guilty too. Like, if I knew about it sooner, I would have been able to change something, if that girl wasn’t going to do anything. So on top of burrying all my emotions, feelings, grief about it, I thought it was supposed to be my responsability to prevent this from happening, even though, it already happened and no one could do anything from that point. I was already messed up losing these three persons, but that information truly messed me up more.
Some years went by. A couple of months after that day, I broke up with the boy I was having a toxic relationship with and on top of dealing with grief, I had to recover from that as well. I focused at school, did truly good work, allowed myself to fall in love again. But I wasn’t totally healed from my friend’s departure, so sometimes I was not acting ‘‘normally’’. It was a lot for others to deal with that story of mine, so I got my first real break up that messed me up and cried for weeks. I was also hired for my first big girl job in the video game industry before I graduated officially. I was truly focusing on everything, but healing. Ignoring all those feelings just made it worse: I lost that job, and when they let me go, the HR lady told me that I should focus on getting better and she was doing me a favor telling me that. At the time it felt wrong.
But while I was looking for another job, I kinda was sitting around in my apartment and felt lonely, sad. It was first time I had a ‘‘break’’ to actually think and ponder. I then decided I should get that help indeed. That was the first move out of many years of therapy. I had these periods when I felt ‘‘better’’ that I was full-on productive or creative and ignored those sad feelings, then they all came back. Blocked out a lot of this by living in excess at times.
I created Death’s Weight during on of those periods where I was in between jobs/school. The emptiness I felt was back again, because other loss from people close to me happened too. My older brother’s best friend and band member passed away from brain cancer at only 22 years old. One of the last song they were raving about was Jaguar’s God by Mastodon. That’s why he is depicted as a jaguar with a brain decaying.
One of my friends from the second high school I went to, sadly drowned accidentaly. She was always doing rebellious stuff, was truly a party girl. That’s why she has devil horns, not in a villain way, but just in the sense that she was always chasing pleasure first. I admired her for that. I laughed so much with her, and whenever we skipped classes (oops) it was always a good time in her company.
In a sense, the departure of those other friends allowed me to deal with grief more easily and express myself finally with this big painting. I posted it on Facebook months later after debating if I should. The inital reaction from most people was a shock, saying it looks powerful/beautiful, then wondering what I’ve been through. I guess that’s why I have such a on/off relationship with this painting. It’s extremely vulnerable and personal to me to show this one to the world. But as the news are filled with more feminicides than ever and people loving those true crime documentaries (I am allergic to those, never recommend me any haha), I feel that addressing what happened to my friends, and the chain reaction it did to me and their loved ones, is bigger than just what you see on TV or the news.
Painting this artstyle was extremely therapeutic at the time to me. It felt right. All the poison that was going through my veins about my trauma was finally on that canvas instead forever. I felt free. Nowadays, I have a hard time reproducing something similar. I have no longer any interests in doing something of the sort. It’s making me feel uneasy instead. I still appreciate it from other artists, it’s just not for me anymore. Now, my subjects are mostly leaning onto dark fantasy, ethereal and beautiful stuff about growth. I want to represent powerful feminine creatures. Pink is my main color to tone down the ‘‘scary’’ aspect. I’m using what I learned at art school and my years as a video game artist to pour onto my art as well.
My friend’s mom told me that she is still carrying her daughters with her everyday, they helped her see all the joyful and amusing stuff in life after tragedy. The beauty in this world. I took that advice for my art and myself. I’m now doing better than ever. I’m exercising and running every week and eating right. Consuming the ‘‘right’’ media and content for me. Having a better and positive outlook on life. Surrounding myself with happy friends that are motivating me and my art projects. My current partner was one of the first person I decided to be extremely real and raw about my grief. He listened and consoled me so much. I got the help I needed from a fantastic therapist I tagged along for years. I did the work I needed to do.
Of course, it’s still a part of me that will probably never heal properly, but at least, now I can discuss about it with more ease and hopefully, open eyes for some people about all the damage it can do to someone. I feel freeer than ever about it.
