Losing a mentor: What would Christine do?
I’ve been asking myself “what would Christine do?” since I first met Christine at the end of 2013 to discuss the possibility of her supervising me for my PhD. But, I’ve been asking myself that question much more often since Christine passed away last week. Losing a mentor isn’t something I have faced before, so I’m getting through it the only way I know how: By doing what Christine would have told me to do.
Take time off. Christine always encouraged me to take breaks away from my PhD, whether it was for a holiday (I went on four overseas trips during the course of my candidature) or for personal reasons. I’m sure I would have completed my thesis much sooner if I hadn’t listened to this advice, but I would have been infinitely more miserable. So, I’ve taken a few days off work to wallow and process.
Cuddle your dog. Christine loved animals and spoke regularly about the joy her own dog brought her. Cuddling my Alfie and watching him play brings happiness like nothing else, even on the worst days.
Be prepared to feel worse 6 months from now. After experiencing some significant losses in the later stages of my PhD, I surprised myself by how well I managed to keep making progress on my research. Eventually, I found myself crying in Christine’s office (a semi-regular occurrence) because I could no longer focus on my work and felt myself getting behind schedule. Christine accurately guessed that it must have been 6 months since the loss of my family members and explained that something she had learned from her own experiences is that the grief will hit again 6 months after the initial loss. So as sad as I feel now, I’m preparing to feel sad again in 6 months and trying to put things in place to lessen it.
Don’t doubt your ability to overcome this. Christine was a perfect supervisor for someone like me and always met my self-doubt and impostor syndrome with support and an “I told you so” for every success I had. I’ve been reading back over our emails and notes from our supervision meetings for reminders about how much she believed in me (“remember that you are awesome!”) and trying to be the person Christine saw me as.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop having to ask myself “what would Christine do?”, but I’m grateful to have had a supervisor with the generosity, wisdom, and values to always give me the right answer.
