Deep Sorrow as Process

A while ago, I advocated making friends with your imposter syndrome. Now I advocate making friends with grief. At least try to understand it; give it room to breathe.

Three weeks ago, a woman who was a positive maternal presence in my life passed away. It was unexpected, jarring, devastating. So, I have been grieving; letting all the emotions I experience exist and flow through my body at the same time. Simple in principle. Complex in practice and time-scale.

This starkness of loss is raw and haunting: there is sadness, anger at death disrupting connections and relationship, the perceived injustice of death’s heart-wrenching existence. I am bereft, asea, confused.

I find myself hoping she knows/knew how much I loved and valued her presence in my life. How much I still love her. How I carry her with me each day.

To say I have been struggling to write is an understatement. Normally, I am very prolific; it is not unusual for me to write five poems a week. I have produced three poems over three weeks.

I am frustrated that concentration isn’t coming easily. Even though death has been an interruption in my creative process, even though there is a clear delineation between before I knew she existed on this physical plane and after I know she is absent, I realize the best thing I can do, as an artist, as a writer, is to turn to my art to process my emotions and bring me comfort. To use it to make sense of the senseless. To remind me there is still goodness and light that exist.

And while I am experiencing this microcosm of personal grief, there is the wider lens of genocide, war and oppression that lives alongside us all. So, I say to all of us: dig deep, practice your craft and let it lift you up above the senselessness and emptiness, that you may inspire yourself as well as others. Let the love that lives in your body find a way out, to spill like sun across everyone’s lives. We need it now.