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Made & Remade: Jade Wildey interviews Stephanie Harrington

How does “Chimera” relate to the memoir you're currently working on?

I would say “Chimera” is adjacent to the memoir, which focuses on rebuilding my relationship with my brother Ian after he was released from prison until his death in May 2020. “Chimera” feels more like a stand-alone piece at the moment.

I started writing “Chimera” because I was trying to articulate the intense experience of losing Ian and becoming a mother over a six-month period. Ian died from toxic drug poisoning two months into the COVID pandemic. The isolation caused by pandemic restrictions directly contributed to his death. Grief is a very physical experience. So is pregnancy. I wanted to explore how those experiences intersected.

How did your choice to write this piece in the second person, addressed directly to your brother, affect your approach to writing it?

I decided to address Ian directly in the piece because I got tired of writing about him as “my brother” or even as the subject Ian. It felt impersonal. When someone dies, you don’t say their name as much. You don’t hear others say their name. You can’t have a conversation with them. Death is brutal in that way. So while that person lives on in your head and heart they are physically not there anymore. And all you want is to talk to them again. I don’t think that longing ever goes away. Addressing Ian directly in the essay gave me a chance to reflect on what we went through as siblings in the months leading up to his death while still giving me a chance to tell him about what came after, the birth of my son and his nephew.

Throughout the piece, there's a theme of isolation, caused by addiction as well as the pandemic. What role did community play in your life at this time? What impact did friends, family, and support groups like NarAnon have?

I hadn’t thought much about isolation being a theme of this piece but I suppose it is. A lot of stigma exists around drug use and drug-related deaths, even though more than 18,000 people in BC have died from toxic drugs in the past ten years. That stigma and shame gets internalized and drives people who use substances to use alone, which is very risky because of the unregulated toxic drug supply. Although isolation is a theme, in many ways, I see the essay as more of a reflection on the ways we are connected, down to a very cellular level, to each other. I went to NarAnon once. I would describe my experience there as vomiting my feelings onto a group of strangers and then running away. It served its purpose at the time. I found community after Ian’s death by attending a bereavement support group organized by Moms Stop the Harm and by becoming involved in advocacy and volunteer work there. I don’t mention it in the essay, but roller derby has been a very important community to me for the past decade. We couldn’t play derby because of pandemic restrictions, but for a couple of weeks after Ian’s death, friends in my derby league made my family food and bought us meal cards so we didn’t have to cook. It was such a thoughtful, practical gesture that meant so much to my family. My friend Susan, who doesn’t even like cooking, baked for us and made us soup, and gave me the coolest handmade card. Ian’s gym started a memorial scholarship in his name. Losing Ian made me more deeply value the communities I am part of and even encouraged me to seek out a new community among people grieving loved ones lost to toxic drugs and those fighting to change drug policy in this country.

Typically, there's a severe opposition between death and new life. In “Chimera,” you contrast this with the myth of the Chimera and the idea that you carry both your brother and newborn with you in different ways. How does your relationship with your son combat this dichotomy?

I joke that this essay is my take on the Lion King circle-of-life kind of story. We are made and remade by significant events in our life, with birth and death among the more extreme examples. This essay came together after I read about the concept of fetal microchimerism, which involves fetal cells crossing the placenta during pregnancy. These fetal cells can stay in the tissue of the birthing person for years after, living in their heart, brain, everywhere in the body. These fetal cells can cross back through the placenta in a later pregnancy and be passed onto younger siblings. The idea that we have remnants of other people in our bodies gives me a weird sense of comfort. In terms of parenting, I think a lot about the fact that my son will grow up hearing about this ghost uncle he’s never met, that he was growing in my body while I went through an intense period of grief. Their stories are entwined. I’m curious how that connection will play out in my son’s life.

Are there any written works that have especially influenced your work or inspired you? What calls to you in other creative nonfiction pieces?

I am a big memoir fan. I tend to like memoir with a literary bent. Truth but tell it slant and all that. Some that stand out include Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat. (She has a new book coming out, Said the Dead, which I am excited about.) The Heart and Other Monsters, by Rose Andersen, Kyo Maclear’s Birds Art Life and Unearthing, anything by Maggie Nelson. I most recently read Claire Cameron’s How to Survive a Bear Attack, which I loved for her ability to bring together two seemingly disparate storylines and her decision to embody the perspective of a bear.

 

 

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