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Expressions of Grief

Death or loss is often a surreal experience; what had such great importance to our lives has now ended; it can no longer be seen or felt or held or heard. It is difficult to simply tuck the experiences you shared with someone you loved into your memory bank like photos in a picture album, close the book and go on with life.

We long to continue the connection with the one who has died. We want to hang onto anything that expresses the love and feelings we had, something concrete we can pick up and hold that links us once more to the person we loved.

Expressions of grief are more than just mourning our loss in tears. It is taking something that is intangible, difficult to define and describe, and giving it substance in some tangible way so we can work with it.

We hang onto favorite pieces of clothes, or objects that were a part of our loved one’s life to reinforce that connection – that memory. Pictures in an album, a scrapbook or memory box, or favorite objects all help us feel closer to the one who died. But sometimes we need more than just the bits and pieces of a life now over – we need to be involved in putting those bits and pieces together – a route to healing.

My husband was a professional musician and left a legacy of music. After his death, I spent over a year, organizing, cataloguing and making a detailed inventory of all his band libraries and boxes of music. At the time, I thought it was something I needed to do in order to sell the music.

But I realized as I went along that it was a way to catalog the many memories we shared with that music. It was a connection to the person who was so important in my life and the process enabled me to heal. In the same way, I lovingly went through my artist son’s drawings when cancer took his life, and the walls of my home are a permanent exhibit of his great talent and love.

Expression takes what was so important to us and creates a living memorial. It doesn’t keep us stuck in the past – it is a way to process and make permanent our love in our ending.

Journaling and writing is one way. My journaling led to the writing of my first book. A love letter or letter of goodbye can put to word what is in the heart. Completing a project in memory of that person is another way. Women have often quilted bits and pieces of their love and loss into remembrance quilts.

As I extended my professional training in this field, I attended a weekend class taught by an art therapist who used different art forms to help individuals put together the pieces of a “shattered” life. As I looked at pictures of art created by grieving individuals, I was in awe of the beauty, pain, power and expression of love poured into these personal testimonies of loss. Anyone can create their own free form collage.

There are many time-worn rituals people have used to help the healing process and complete the journey of loss: planting a special tree or shrub; going through ritualistic mazes or walks. Allow yourself freedom to do what is right for you. Find a way that is meaningful to you that expresses your loss and your grief.

It may not just be a one-time thing. It may become an annual ritual. Soldiers often go back to battlefields and in remembering, heal another layer of pain and sorrow. My daughter continues to heal the memory of her beloved dad as she lovingly shares with her daughter about the grandfather she will know only through her Mom’s loving eyes.

©2012 Marlene Anderson, MA, LMHC, NCC

 

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