Halifax Was Never Supposed to be Home: Grief and The Women Who Anchored Me

Five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. I’m standing in the glass hallway to the Glube Room trying to stem the panic rising in my chest and can’t see anything through the tears that keep pooling in my eyes. The night before, my Reading Week plans, my housing for summer, and my plans to return to Ontario after graduation had disappeared over the course of a nine-minute phone call. I can’t seem to tell which way is up. 

I see class starting and slip into my seat with my eyes down, confident no one can see my red eyes. Immediately, a message pops up on my computer from a classmate across the room: 

“Are you okay?”

I realize that I am fooling no one, and I consider walking out but refuse to miss Law & Technology with Suzie Dunn. 

A life perpetually in motion

After an undergrad in computer software engineering and a decade working in defence, my friends are predominantly men scattered across North America and Europe. In my twenties, I focused on my career and said yes to every posting and deployment, never living in one place for longer than 23 months, spending my vacation backpacking solo across five continents. 

A life perpetually in motion provided a handy excuse to avoid self-reflection. Working primarily in Operations, there was always a problem to solve that wasn’t my own – or an after-hours social to attend. Seeing Halifax as a temporary stopover for my law degree, I kept everyone at arm’s length in 1L, with my heart in Goose Bay or Ottawa. 

No place to hide in Halifax

Law school, however busy, was a different kind of environment. One with hours in the CHEB, repeatedly studying the same material. I didn’t have to create any communications plans for the response to wildfires in Manitoba or Ontario. No one called me about cryptological issues for our air bridges abroad. My reflexive phone-checking habit yielded only my friends’ Wordle scores and events posted in the Class of 2026 Messenger group. 

There was no place to hide from the anxiety and grief that washed over me, and I couldn’t leave Halifax for months. At RMCC, I was the only woman. At Schulich, I’m surrounded by women for the first time since elementary school. Women who stepped in in ways I didn’t know I needed. Women who were willing to listen to me analyze the situation over and over again, even though nothing was going to change. Women who invited me over when I was terrible company but didn’t want to be alone. Women who sent me messages even when I hadn’t replied to the last three.

Ships being anchored

Eventually, the waves of grief ebbed to predictable tides, I earned my own way back to Ottawa after graduation and landed a summer opportunity I never would have dreamed of being possible. While I want to forget much of what happened in 2L, I hope to keep these friendships as I continue to flit across the globe.