Road To Recovery

Tiana Littlejohn learns how to cope with loss and shares stories with world traveler Chris Kellow.

By Tiana Littlejohn

On March 7, 2020, I walked into my house with the knowledge that my dad was taken off life support only a few hours earlier. The man who played a part in my creation was no longer here to help me grow. I collapsed to the floor surrounded by giant flower bouquets from sympathetic neighbors.

I screamed: “Why is this happening?”

I felt every emotion all at once. Anger and shouting was followed by sorrow and weeping. Then one week after I lost him I was ordered to quarantine at home without my valuable family member. I was trapped looking at his chair, passing his empty room and office. I felt hurt and lonely. I wanted to run upstairs and give him a hug, or hear his voice, but instead I was alone in the house he watched me grow up in.

I was angry that he left me before he could see me graduate, get married, or become a mature adult. For a while, almost every day was a constant battle of either getting up and lugging my emotional weight around or staying in bed in a dark corner all day. But there came a time when I remembered that my dad taught me to live life to the fullest.

I have always believed character is something an individual builds from their surrounding environment and life experience, good or bad. Character is defined as the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual, and although I am insecure and get down on myself sometimes, as most teenagers do, I have cultivated many strong characteristics and have learned to recognize them in others.

My neighbor Chris Kellow has all the characteristics I am inspired to have. Most of all she is strong and this was proven after she lost her husband in 2019. Since then, Kellow has sought love and peace with grief instead of hate and anger. She remains grounded to the earth, always striving to do more with this short life we are given. She lives by a Mark Twain quote: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Kellow has traveled to 208 (out of 241) countries and territories in the world. In the last 20 years, she has spent a total of eight years out of the country, usually leaving for three months twice a year. Kellow usually only brings one bag and chooses to fly into the biggest city and then finds her way to small towns and villages. She started traveling with a trip to Europe, initially visiting sought-out places like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. But this first trip quickly sparked her thirst for backpacking in new land and made her want to experience more. Inspired by the people, the culture, she wanted to see land untouched by judgement.

Kellow went to The University of Hawaii to study interior design and got a job shortly after graduating. Every paycheck, she put a little away for traveling expenses. One day, Kellow asked her boss for a six month leave to visit South Africa. After getting turned down, she quit her job.

Upon returning, she started small businesses—candlemaking and jewelry design. She soon went back to college to get a different degree. Then she met her husband, Les, and started a daycare business, while continuing to travel. She retired at 40 and has been seeking adventures ever since.

One of her most memorable experiences came when she went to Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan after the Gulf War started. Kellow wanted to see what the local people were saying about her country, and how they felt. People would say, “we hate your country, we hate your president, but you, you are my friend, come to my house, come have tea.”

She was surprised by how the people who had grown up in war, some scarred by buildings falling on them from bombs or grenades, all opened their hearts to a mere stranger. Her first couple of trips to the Middle East were spent backpacking and seeking knowledge of the people, but after seeing the ruins and people missing arms and legs, babies begging for food, she spent her nights locked away in a room crying. “It changed my perspective on life so much that the culture shock was almost unbearable at times,” says Kellow.

Kellow recommends people go out and observe other people, and experience how others live with an open mind. Kellow understands that traveling can be expensive, but as author Paolo Coelho says, “travel is never a matter of money but of courage.”

After the death of her husband, Kellow decided she couldn’t live in sorrow and sadness. Although her original plan was to go to all the countries with her partner, she came to the realization she must finish by herself, that life must go on. Kellow has started taking music classes at LCC to learn the piano, cooks healthy and balanced meals, and continues to go on daily walks. “I used to wait for someone to join me on my walks, never wanting to be alone at first, but now if someone doesn’t want to go with me, I walk with myself,” she says. And this might be the key to recovery. “Humans have long stigmatized solitude,” explains California State Polytechnic University sociologist Jack Fong. “It has been considered an inconvenience, something to avoid, a punishment, a realm of loners,” he says.

Fong adds, “when people are experiencing a crisis it’s not always just about you. It’s about how you are in society. When people take these moments to explore their solitude, not only will they be forced to confront who they are, they just might learn a little bit about how to out-maneuver some of the toxicity that surrounds them.”

Solitude does not work as an instant healing process. “It’s a deeper internal process,” notes Matthew Bowker, a psychoanalytic political theorist at Medaille College who has researched solitude. The reason humans cannot just be alone in absolute solitude is because it is an uncomfortable journey. But it proves critical.

“It might take a little bit of work before it turns into a pleasant experience,” says Booker. “But once it does it becomes maybe the most important relationship anybody ever has, the relationship you have with yourself.”

----------

I have been so scared to let go of my dad since his passing. I question if I will stop wishing for him to return. Will I forever lose the memories and special connection I had with him? In talking with Kellow and feeling the peace she cultivated, I see that it is not about letting go, but rather embracing the life that was once there and making it a part of what will come.

My dad taught me to live life to the fullest, with an open heart, and appreciate the people around me, making sure to always say I love you before leaving. My dad, while no longer here, has taught me to love myself.

Waking up everyday, while sometimes tough, is a blessing in itself. I’ve heard that “the stronger our attachment to someone or something, the stronger our grief.” I can verify that. It’s up to people like Kellow and I to make sure that what was so special about someone’s heart lives on by sharing memories with others.

Traveling is much more than getting on a plane and seeing new things. Traveling is exploring new cultures and behaviors, growing mentally and physically. Going out and seeing things with a new set of eyes helps us appreciate things we often take for granted. The more you travel, internal and external landscapes, the more you make the world your home, leaving a little part of your heart in places where people have no hope. Listening to Kellow’s stories always leaves me seeking more adventure, some inner peace, and to be content with being alone.