Having grown up in a tight-knit community, Jodie Botica would frequently go shopping at the supermarket and see people she knew.
They wouldn’t run. But they would quickly go down the other aisle.
“It was similar for my dad,” Jodie, now 28, says. “He would go out walking and see someone in the front yard turn around.”
Jodie was 23 when her mother, Karin, passed away from blood cancer.
“You realise who’s in your corner and who isn’t,” Jodie says.
“Friends stick with you during those hard moments – when you’re crying or sitting in silence. They have no expectations.”
With other people, Jodie mentioned, they don’t know how to act around someone grieving.
At the time of Karin’s death, Jodie was working in the city. After she moved back to her childhood home in Beachlands, she found it difficult to come home from work and see constant, vivid reminders of her mother.
“We pushed the boundaries between mother and daughter,” Jodie says. “She was my best friend.”
Jodie was “finding her feet in the world” when she learned her mother was sick. When she found out, everything came crashing down. “It’s a unique experience of loss when you’re young,” she says. “You lose the stability you thought you had and the relationship you thought you were going to have.”
Not long after her mother died, Jodie was catching up with an old friend, Julia. They’d meet in Venice where they’d both secured internships at an art museum there. “It was three months of amazingness,” Jodie says.
When they got back to Auckland, they lost touch but met again a year afterwards.
She remembers one of them dropping the bomb. “I found out her Dad had died and she found out my Mum had,” Jodie says. “It kind of built from there.”
Julia was going through a similar experience as Jodie – she was the first one in her friend group to lose a parent.
“Personally, it was crucial for me to find someone else to talk with,” Jodie says.
Eventually, Jodie and Julia found other like-minded people with similar experiences and it “kind of took off”. Jodie quickly found that there weren’t any avenues out there for people grieving in New Zealand.
Wish You Were Here was founded on this concept. The movement aims to connect young adults who have experienced grief and to provide a safe environment to speak on it.
“Since we launched, I’ve been amazed at the responses,” Jodie says. “Lots of people have been saying ‘this is cool.’ The older generations have said they wished they had something like this when they were younger.”
Although Jodie and Julia wish they’d had something like this when their parents died, they’re glad they can help make a step in the right direction for open communication channels for grieving youths.
Wish You Were Here’s website carries information on available resources and information. Additionally, they have meet-ups in Wellington. The first Auckland meet-up is on Saturday May 1.
“I’m still grieving my mum,” Jodie says. “But if you’ve lost someone, know that whatever you’re feeling is okay. That there is support out there.”
- Visit https://www.wishyouwerehere.org.nz/ for more information and support.
