“Just two days after the first of June,
A pine with arms brushing off the dew;
Unlike a sky copious with death,
Precipitation of heart and head.”
— From “Monsoon” by Hippo Campus
On one level, things are going great for Nathan Stocker and his indie rock band Hippo Campus.
Hippo Campus has released only two extended-play recordings thus far, “South” (2014) and “Bashful Creatures” (2015), and yet its music is already getting great reviews.
Paste Magazine says that the “band’s lyrics offer an impressive timelessness.” The Guardian says, “They give good joy.” And BestNewBands.Com predicts that Hippo Campus is “ready for the big leagues.”
The band’s live performances are getting noticed as well. Hippo Campus boasts an impressive list of shows, including playing on Conan O’Brien’s show, “Conan,” and at the South By Southwest festival. In 2015, Hippo Campus played the Lollapalooza Festival, prompting Rolling Stone to call the group “best newcomers” who played “blissful indie rock with a dash of Afro-pop.”
And things are just getting rolling for Hippo Campus. Its first full-length debut album, “Landmark,” is coming out on Feb. 24. And the band is embarking on a world tour to support the album, playing venues such as New York’s Irving Plaza.
But for Stocker, all of the success he has had with Hippo Campus has been in the context of a personal tragedy. In 2009, when he was 14, his 18-year-old sister, Makenzie, was killed in a car accident. And while the death of his sister was a tremendous loss for Stocker, he has chosen to cope in a very specific way; namely, by moving away from grieving his sister to celebrating Makenzie’s life.
Stocker discussed this approach with me in the hopes that it might offer others another possible path in dealing with loss.
Coping with loss can be a very complicated process. One of the things that can make it more complicated — and perhaps more difficult — for many people is the expectation that there is one uniform way to experience loss. Stereotypically, it is assumed that when one loses a family member, people will become depressed.
But there is increasing evidence that it is not only possible, but also common, for people to cope with loss without experiencing depression. For example, one study examined reactions of 205 older individuals several years prior to, and following, the loss of a spouse at a six-month and 18-month follow-up period.
The study examined several bereavement patterns, including “common grief,” in which people experienced a brief increase in depression and then a return to baseline; “chronic grief,” in which people experienced a prolonged depressive response following loss; and “resilience,” where people, both prior to, and following, the loss of a spouse, experienced low depression.
While it may have been assumed that grief would be the normative response, results showed that almost half of the participants were resilient, and that “resilience” was by far the most common reaction among participants.
Stocker realized early on that while Makenzie’s death was by no means easy or a “happy” event, he and his family coped by viewing their loss from a perspective of celebration, rather than loss.
“For me, it was fairly simple to embrace the initial feeling. It was not as difficult of a transition as one would think for me … I didn’t look at it as grieving. It’s just something that ends,” Stocker said. “I think most of what made it fairly simple to grasp was the family support … being resolute on the fact that we were not going to let this destroy us as a family. And we’re going to endure through the hardship and accept it as the new normal.
“And celebrate the life that she had, instead of mourning.”
Stocker recognizes that this approach is not necessarily for everyone — but rather a choice that works for him. “I think of the celebration aspect of it as a choice. Obviously, you can’t choose when tragedy strikes,” Stocker said. “But you can choose your response to it. And the celebration aspect of it looks at being thankful for the life that she had, instead of the life that could have been.”
While Stocker is appreciative of the support he has received from other people outside his family, he was aware that at times, the help that was offered often conflicted with his approach to coping. Specifically, by focusing on helping Stocker cope with what they assumed were his feelings of grief and depression, they were not necessarily helping him remember his sister.
Thus, these well-intentioned people were inadvertently engaging in a sort of denial or nullification of his sister’s life.
“I think denial can be really dangerous. People will come up to you and be like, ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to help you. But if you need anything, I’m here.’ That’s good and all,” Stocker explained. “But I want to be able to remember this person instead of acting like they didn’t exist. People who ask me, ‘What was Makenzie like?’ or ‘What was your sister like?’ — that’s more impactful to me than just being sorry all the time.”
Stocker thinks that this is a widespread societal habit — especially for people who have died at a young age. We often choose to mourn the loss of potential, rather than celebrate what the person did while alive.
“People talk about the potential of somebody — the wasted potential, as opposed to the life that someone has lived. Which is interesting — the difference between the way we value potential, as compared to the way we value things that are done. It’s kind of weird,” he said. “Everybody has potential. No matter how old or young you are. I don’t think there should be bigger trophies for more potential. It’s just our human condition to look at the 60-plus years that she normally would have had. There is no normal, given life.”
And because Stocker chooses to focus on what one’s life is or has been, as opposed to its “potential,” he thinks that he can appreciate the life his sister led. “And when it comes to being joyful with the things that she did get to do and the things that she did — the impact she had on the people around her in such a short time — that trumps the ‘potential’ that she had, I think,” Stocker explained.
“She did a lot of stuff in her 18 years.”
More, his sister’s death has given Stocker a broader feeling of gratitude and appreciation of his own life. Stocker addresses this issue in the song “Monsoon” on the upcoming album.
“I think it’s taken a while to understand. I was 14 at the time. Maybe a gratitude towards life in general. And that may play a part in what I talk about in the song that we just released, where I didn’t feel the guilt that I had heard so much about when people die — the ‘It should have been me’ feeling,” Stocker explained. “I felt like I had been given a chance to expand upon what my sister had already done. For me, it was more that I had felt that I had been given an opportunity in a way.
“And I was thankful for that.”
To be sure, Stocker realizes that his sense of gratitude is not a steady state, but rather an active and evolving process.
“It’s an ability. It’s not something that you have and you just get. Just the way we’re wired as humans. Our muscle has to break down to gain muscle,” he said. “The same thing goes for gratitude. It’s not really an attitude; it’s more of a practice. It takes maintenance, and it takes time. In terms of practicing gratitude, I don’t do anything specific other than being aware.”
Ultimately, while Stocker is content with how he has coped with his sister’s death, he recognizes that dealing with loss is neither a linear nor acute process. He knows that over time, he may experience a range of emotions that will require him to constantly re-evaluate his perspective. But he is hopeful that he can continue to celebrate his sister’s life and be grateful for his own, even as he misses her.
“It’s not a singular response. It’s something that keeps transforming over time,” Stocker said.
“You still have to go through the storm over and over again.”
Photo credit: Alice Baxley
An earlier version of this article originally appeared in Psychology Today on January 4, 2017.
