The Guilt of Living

I sat near the back left of an ornate New Jersey cathedral, on an exceptionally warm August day, watching the droves of people filling up the pews and many others needing to stand in against the back wall due to capacity. Nearly 400 people were there to show respect to a young man, not even 22 years old, who lost his battle with Hodgkin’s disease Lymphoma.

Jason (“Jay” for those close to him) Schaible and I never formally met. We passed by each other and ran in similar circles at the especially small Loyola College, but we weren’t introduced until his death of the same disease I had overcome twice. My role as Managing Editor on the school paper had me assigning stories to the staff, and when I heard about this charismatic, fun-loving, and thoughtful guy who was taken from the world far too soon, I knew I needed to tell his story – part out of what felt like obligation as a survivor, another part for the striking sympathy and similarity I felt.

And that was when I knew, that after 3 years of cementing my new persona at Loyola and 5 years of being a “survivor”, I needed to unsheathe this self-inflicted veil I held over myself and let people know about my life-changing experience. Not just for myself, but also for those grieving, who I hoped would feel comfort in my battle and portrayal of this larger-than-life friend, brother, and son.

In my process of memorializing Jason, I opened up. I became vulnerable and the weight of the secret that I held for years came crashing down upon me. I was sitting across from Jay’s closest friends who just lost a light in their life, and here I was, someone thriving with the life that I so luckily was able to keep. I felt my initial intention of being relatable, comforting, and considerate viciously backfired on me, as I was struck with deep guilt and shame. Like I was gloating in the face of those mourning with the fact that I was living, and Jason wasn’t.

At his funeral, I broke down, uncontrollably. And in the worst of all places, in the receiving line following the ceremony. Shaking hands with Jason’s parents, I explained who I was, how I didn’t know Jay, but I felt we were kindred souls and after seeing the pain in both their eyes but the firmness of their handshakes and hugs, I didn’t keep the line moving.

I stopped and I told them through sobbing tears, “I’m so sorry. It should have been me, why did it have to be him and not me?”

And the last people in the world in that moment that should be giving sympathies and comfort, the grieving parents of a son with a life ahead of him, in the receiving line. How selfish I was? And yet that’s precisely what Vince and Karen Schaible did, they comforted this stranger who wept to them over their son’s death – and his own non-death. And that’s what they did for years following that unfortunate day we met, they supported me.

Jason’s death had me confront the profound question I had distracted myself from addressing for years by taking hold of my new life and running with it: why was my life spared? And why are so many others not as fortunate as me?

At the time, I didn’t know what I was experiencing or that it had a label: Survivor’s Guilt.

I began recounting the many lives before me that didn’t ‘survive’ and the remorse started to compound. My grandmother Beverly, Cait, Suzy, Dianne, Bo, Barry, Matty, Kyle, Josh, Beth, Cal… the list goes on and sadly it only gets longer throughout this life that I am so blessed to have. And the guilt doesn’t subside; it only expands and requires care and management in order not to let it consume me.

I firmly believe that Jay’s passing filled me with his spirit, further enlightened me to the sacredness of life, and became a destiny for this new life I now lead as a survivor. In a letter to Jason’s parents, I told them, “I can proudly say that the torch of being strong, proud, and courageous against what life gives to you is a flame that Jason passed to me that year.”