On Grief and Humanization Amid Neoliberalism

It’s been no secret that I juggle a lot. I always have. In high school, I worked 32 hours weekly at a grocery store while balancing marching band practice and physical therapy. I would do homework on my lunch break or stay up really late to finish my coursework. In undergrad, I worked 48 hours a week as a shift supervisor at a large coffee chain. I battled a lot of problematic behavior by my store manager, finding shift coverage for baristas who were sick because my manager had no respect for illness or otherwise, and was going to school at UCLA. Throughout my master’s, I worked full-time and was balancing having a toddler at home and gave birth to my daughter after having been on bed rest due to premature labor that was fortunately stopped at 30 weeks. Then, I worked more than full-time in a full-time secondary teacher role while teaching three college classes, including through the height of the pandemic.

Now, let me make it very clear: when I was an undergrad, I started experiencing my first taste of burnout, but I was not aware then that there was a word for it or even that I was experiencing burnout. I thought it was good old-fashioned depression, which, to be fair, was probably a nice cocktail of both.

As I’m trying to push through vast amounts of grief, I’m finding myself getting sick more often, my knee has been acting up, and I’m finding myself in a state of, “I just need to push through.”

And that's no way to live.

So, let me backtrack to the intersection of grief and burnout in my life.

In high school, I lost my grandfather. He was one of the most important humans in my life. He encouraged me to continue my schooling, to be a strong person, and to speak up against injustices. He shared his pain and struggle when my grandma died, and we bonded over our shared pain. In 2005, he went in for the repair of an aortic aneurysm and then entered a rehabilitation facility. The surgery was likely too hard on his body, and after several months, he passed away on November 19, 2005. I was crushed. I was 17, and I remember when I learned the news - my legs buckled under me. I couldn’t move from behind the door. I remember still, almost 19 years later, the heaviness in my chest, my inability to breathe, and the rush of regrets. What if I could have talked to him just a little longer last time? If I wasn’t working so much, I could have said more to him. The what-ifs hit hard.

My grandfather, Al “Shorty” Holkenbrink, and 16-year-old me, in rural Illinois, 2004

Yet, I went to sleep that night, woke up the following day, and off I went to my 4:00 am shift.

I knew that we would be flying out for the funeral. My dad was already in Illinois, having spent significant time with him in the last weeks of my grandfather’s life. Despite the immense pain, the lack of sleep, and the swirl of thoughts, I still forced myself to put on my blue polo shirt, khaki pants, and slip-resistant shoes.

That morning, one of my managers asked me to complete a task. As I started it, she looked at me with near disgust and uttered, “What’s wrong with you?”

I looked at her blankly and said, “I’m tired.”

She responded, “It’s a 4:00 am shift; of course, you’re tired,” while rolling her eyes. A wave of anger filled my entire body, followed almost immediately by pain, anguish, and deep sadness.

“My grandfather died last night,” I responded, void of emotion.

“I… Oh I…”

I interrupted her false apologies. “I need to go back to work and finish this task.”

Now, of course, she didn’t know. How could she know that my grandfather died? I hadn’t told anybody. I had no desire to share this news with people. Quite frankly, I wanted no attention, affection, or empty condolences from people who barely knew me. But why should it take knowledge of a significant loss to be kind to people? I think that was one of the most memorable reflections in my life: that the valuation of productivity over humanity was asinine and fostered indifference and animosity. Of course, not in that language, but the sentiment was present, and in hindsight, I realize it reflects the ways that we have these boundaries between the personal and professional that often prioritize "objective" measures of performance over real human experiences, leading to a devaluation of personal well-being in professional settings. Alas, there it was.

I existed in a weird middle space for a long time, and I remember facing some severe depression then that would extend for several years later. Loss has always been hard on me, and to have lost somebody so close was difficult. My grandfather’s funeral was during the week of college applications, so I remember, despite the grief, the anguish, and all the in-betweens, I sat in my cousin’s bedroom on her computer, finishing my UC applications. Powering through the emotions and sidestepping tears and feelings, I typed fervently to finish the essays, aware that school was vital for me and that it wouldn’t bring my grandfather back.

So, now pause for a moment.

I had internalized the message that schooling was so important I could not miss the application deadline. Nothing would move for me; I would not be able to submit it later, and alternatives and options would not be available to me. Of course, there are always options, but by that point, I had received so many messages equating my worth and value to my education and schooling that I could not see my full humanity. I would not allow myself to feel and embrace the emotions that were present because I had to ensure that I maintained this component of my identity.

High school graduation, 2006

I’d go on to finish high school, graduating with honors and in the top 1% of my class. For a long time, being “high achieving” was integral to my identity, something that was a harsh reality when I began stumbling in undergrad. By the time I hit undergrad, I was grappling with debilitating migraines, depression, and, quite honestly, burnout. Yet, I had no idea it was burnout. My parents had parted ways, my dad sold his house, I was away from my family, I was facing tremendous emotional backlash in my personal life, and it wasn't easy.

I ended up on academic probation for a period of my undergrad years and actually took a leave of absence, thinking that I’d become a massage therapist. I went to massage therapy school briefly, realized that I had no interest in it, though I could appreciate the practice, and then went back to UCLA to finish my degree.

My education journey has been riddled with moments, just like that, where I simply chose to push through. For example, when I had my son preterm, I took a major exam while I was induced because my professor wouldn’t give me grace. Or at the beginning of 2014, I went into premature labor at 30 weeks with my daughter. I used my entire winter break in the hospital, my mom bringing my son to me to see me for almost two weeks. My mom still drove me to class so I didn’t have to walk far to class, and later had my daughter at 38 weeks, and I still went back to class two weeks later (though shout out to my professors for giving me grace and ensuring me I didn’t have to.) 2016, I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, and still finished my program, entering a PhD program in 2017, and then my life fell apart in 2019. Never mind a global pandemic in 2020 where I was teaching full-time high school and part-time college while in a PhD program coping with my entire world being upended.

Now, I’m not just simply listing traumatic experiences, though it may seem that way. No, in each of those instances, I pushed through, deciding that I needed to uphold my academic identity, something that I almost lost in undergrad when I felt confused and struggling through my life.

I find myself here again but at a different crossroads. On September 10, our family experienced a major loss. My comadre, my kids’ godmother, and one of my closest friends of 17 years, died. I’d been traveling to Los Angeles regularly to support her and advocate for her, as her healthcare facility had drastically dismissed her. Her husband did everything he could to help her; I drove to Los Angeles, both with the goal always being that she’d recover, and yet the healthcare system radically failed her, resulting in the loss of her life. My children adored her, my daughter shared a love of fashion and art, and my son shared a similar sense of humor and jokes - and while we expected it would happen, unfortunately, it also hit us out of nowhere quicker than we had expected.

I took a day off to support my children, and then we had the weekend, but in hindsight, I wish I’d had more time to sit with my grief, too. The year of traveling to Los Angeles from San Diego, phone calls with her husband, talks with my children, and the sharing of stories toppled on top of me, nearly suffocating me, and yet I had to push through. I feel the weight of this grief heavy now, heavier than normal, and I do not think it’s coincidental - I am finally deciding, consciously or not - to slow down and feel my humanity.

I befriended a professor in another department because we overlap. We’ve seen each other over this past year, and she asked me for advice. One of her students had just faced a devastating loss; their mom had been in hospice and had died. It resulted in the student missing a quiz and falling behind for a week. This colleague, who is relatively new in her career, asked me what I would do because she was conflicted between her own

philosophy of trying to support the student and give them an opportunity, and upholding the expectations of her department. I explained that, ultimately, she’d have to make that decision, but I shared what I would do: they’d have time to take the quiz, time to study, and they could come to office hours to explore concepts they missed.

I do not fault this professor and wonderful human; in an academic world that still values solely productivity yet touts theory of student equity, where some professors believe their class is more important than humanizing that person, I do not blame them for grappling with the tough decision. This person is a wonderful human, and this was further exemplified in our conversation. Yet, what a world, right? That this institution has pushed her to believe she had to make a tough choice between these two rather than humanize this student.

Of course, no industry is perfect, and the support of bereavement in our world is nearly non-existent aside from a few workshops or support groups. But I find what happens so often, as institutions and practice, is that students are merely theoretical concepts rather than actual living humans in front of us. The same goes for faculty - they are simply vessels to administer the knowledge and ideas around theories of equity rather than humanize themselves by the institution.

How can we reshape this? How can we rethink this? Our individual practice is a first step, of course, but what about institutional practice? How can we foster a culture that fully humanizes our instructors, too, so in turn, we can model humanization? Because if we continue dehumanizing our instructors, it becomes almost permission to dehumanize our students, and yet we all just remain human only in theory.

We have choice and agency, but we must begin truly thinking about how institutions uphold cultural values that go against the theoretical narratives we present. For me, I need to begin humanizing myself fully, too, and that means allowing myself time and space to grief, to process - that is what is within the reality of my own agency. Burnout is real, and we have discussed it as a society simply as individual modes of exhaustion, existing in a frozen state - but we are on the way to collective burnout. Perhaps one of the first steps to prevent this is to engage collectively, center joy, and allow ourselves to truly grieve.

We need to make that choice and take our power, and quite frankly, we owe it to our students and future generations to model that humanization. Otherwise, the hours of reading our academic articles and liberatory theories will be all for nothing, and wee are simply teaching them to continue the cycle of discussing theory but never applying it in practice.