FAITH+CULTURE Music and memory: How Blaine woman lives with grief

By Christina Capecchi For The Catholic Spirit

Jessica Ottman, 38, is a University of St. Thomas graduate and co-owner with her mom, Mary, of Siena Soap, an all-natural skin care line named after St. Catherine of Siena. Two years ago, they endured a horrific tragedy: Jessica’s sister Leah — an acclaimed singer, songwriter and violinist known as LOTT — died from fentanyl poisoning. She had just turned 33.

Today, the Ottman women honor Leah’s memory through Siena Soap, including the LOTT Bar and the LOTT Foundation, which gives stringed instruments to underprivileged kids in the Twin Cities. “I hope it will inspire them to know their worth and keep Leah’s generous spirit alive,” said Jessica, a member of St. Paul in Ham Lake who lives in Blaine.

Q All four of your siblings were adopted from Korea. Do people comment on how lucky they are to be in your family in Minnesota?

A Yes. That really irks me, because it implies they’re a charity case, as if they’re not worthy of a life just like you or me. That’s not true. My parents and I were the lucky ones who were blessed to have them in our lives.

Q Leah was known for her method of looping with her violin.

A She had a machine that would make different sounds with her violin, and it would record her playing and then do another sound and loop them over each other. I’m so thankful for all the music recordings we have of her because listening to that makes it seem like she’s right there. We also have other videos of her talking.

I urge people: Record your loved ones talking! You won’t regret it.

Q The fentanyl crisis has claimed so many lives. What a shock to lose Leah to it.

A Society would say it was an accidental overdose. We see it as she was poisoned from fentanyl. It was a bad batch of drugs and she had no idea any fentanyl was in it — let alone a deadly amount.

Q What have you learned about grief?

A The grief process is hard because it’s such a lonely experience. Everyone experiences it differently, and an important lesson is just respecting how others grieve.

I also would say: I don’t know how I would’ve gone through this without my faith. It sustained me. It would be a very hard and hopeless experience without believing in God and heaven and knowing you get to see the person again.

Q What has helped you process the complicated, traumatic nature of Leah’s death?

A For me, it’s been feeling all the feelings when they come, not stuffing them down. I’ll just start crying and I don’t really care if I start crying. I try to honor the feelings and work through them. People would say, “You have to remember she’s so much happier now. She wouldn’t want you to be sad.” That’s hard to hear because it’s not honoring the person’s grief. It makes you feel like you have to pretend to be fine around others and put on a front. I understand that people don’t know what to say, but what would be more helpful is just sitting there with you and not trying to fix it, making space for the person to feel exactly how they’re feeling. If you want to say anything, say, “Yeah, this is really horrible.”

It also helped when people showed up for us months after Leah’s death. When you lose someone, you’re initially surrounded by so much love and support, and that’s wonderful, but then everyone’s lives go back to normal and yours doesn’t. Remembering that year of firsts and reaching out on that person’s birthday, on holidays, on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day means so much.

Q What does sitting with your feelings look like for you?

A Sometimes just sitting there and decompressing. This would sound weird to someone who’s not gone through grief, but those who have would get it, but those first several months, a lot of times I would go home and just lay on my bed and stare at the wall for hours. My mind was trying to keep up with the processing.

When I get up, and I feel the tears coming, I’m not embarrassed. I just let them out.

Leah passed away in the winter — a really cold winter — but I started going for winter walks because I craved the cold fresh air, maybe even to feel a little bit more alive.

Shortly after the one-year anniversary of her death, I went on a silent retreat at Pacem in Terris, a hermitage retreat center near Isanti that was founded by a couple from our church. I didn’t want to leave.

Q Did you like to envision Leah in heaven, free from suffering?

A Yeah, I just think she’s so happy, enjoying life. It makes me happy that my grandma’s up there with her, and they really loved each other. I picture them dancing around.

Q How did Leah’s death change you?

A It changed me to the core. I’ve always been a very high-functioning person. You have to be to run a small business. But I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s as if my body didn’t let me. Just doing simple things was so much harder. I’d move so much slower, and I couldn’t understand. Cleaning still takes me longer.

I’ve always been a very sociable person, and I’m a little less social now. I need more down time to decompress and process.

I’m now part of this worst club ever, the grief club. It unveils this different reality for you. Grief has dulled some of the wonder in life. For example, those first nice spring days that you just feel in your soul and make you so excited — I can’t fully get that anymore. I miss that. I hope that will return. I’m not even two and a half years into this grief journey.

Q You can’t measure yourself by the old metrics of productivity. It’s one day at a time.

A And sometimes not even a day at a time. It’s an hour at a time for the first few months, then it moves to a day at a time. And after that, you can have some — not great days, but some OK days. In between it all, you still laugh and have fun. You can still do things you enjoy, but the joy feels different.

Q How so?

A There’s always going to be a heaviness in your life. It’s like a little bit of innocence is taken. The grief never goes away; you just learn how to carry it with you. In a sense, you don’t want it to go away, because that person was so amazing and you love them so much, they’re worth that. It’s all the future love you’re never able to give them.

Q Do you have a go-to prayer?

A The St. Michael prayer for protection. There’s so much going on in the world that it can be overwhelming. It’s easy to give in to fear. That prayer blankets you with protection and gives strength. I also do a weekly hour of eucharistic adoration — every Wednesday at 9 a.m. It brings me a lot of peace.

Q What do you know for sure?

A There’s beauty in pain. It changes your heart in ways you never knew were possible as you navigate life’s valleys and hills. Even though I’ll never understand some of God’s choices — I don’t always agree, I wish I had my sister — I know that someday I’ll know the reason why.