Dealing with loss can be very difficult. For Michelle Golebiowski, a professional public speaker based out of Winnipeg, this was compounded in her younger years with the loss of both her parents, her grandfather, and her best friend within 18 months.
Golebiowski stopped in at Arcola School on Friday, April 29, to speak about how she was able to cope and spoke about the importance of self-care as well as encouraging youth to reach out for help when an unexpected life challenge occurs.
“It was on February 12, 2006, at 8:08 a.m., I know it was at 8:08 a.m. because that’s the time I took the bus to school, that Mom passed away. She was my rock, she taught us to be resilient. ‘No matter what happens,’ she used to say, ‘you can come talk to me,” Golebiowksi said. “Think about someone right now that you trust, that you can go to if you need to reach out, because you all have someone willing to listen.”
“For six months I pretended that she was on vacation, for me it was a coping strategy, it worked for a little while, but not forever.”
That September her grandfather passed away and the day of her grandfather’s funeral she spoke to her best friend for the last time. Her friend was a tow truck driver and while driving in Winnipeg at 4:30 a.m. a drunk driver collided with the truck.
“Somebody else’s choice took my best friend away,” she stated.
Then, six months later, her father passed away.
There was a lot of loss in her life in a very short amount of time, but she says staying in school and being able to finish her program was important to her and was something her loved ones would have wanted her to finish. Getting through school, however, is difficult to do when you’ve gone through a loss and Golebiowski had gone through four.
“People always ask me how I got through it, I kept each of their obituaries in the back of one of my books, and carried them with me,” she said. “It would have been so easy to give up and walk away, but I wasn’t raised like that, giving up wasn’t an option.”
Honouring her loved ones she became focused on finishing school. Following university she began speaking about road safety and telling the story about her friend who was taken from her by a drunk driver.
However, she wanted to do more, and with mental illness in her family, both her father and grandfather had dealt with mental illnesses, she wanted to bring awareness to mental health and the importance of self care strategies.
For Golebiowksi self care includes playing the guitar, watching comedy shows, riding dirt bikes, and doing other things she’s passionate about.
“You need to do something that makes you feel good,” she told the grade eight to 12 students at Arcola School. “You get to pick and you get to decide what that is.”
“And we need to support each other.”
Following the presentation, Principal Ron Wardrope said to students, “We all go through difficult times and you have to make sure you take care of yourself.”
