Writing through the grief
How writing has helped me and is helping me through hard times
Grief is a strange process. Some days seem almost normal, and then out of nowhere it hits me. Soon I will no longer have a father in this world. There is something surreal and beautiful about a planned death. But it is impacting my ability to write.
It’s not a shock that it’s happening. I knew this day was coming when my dad first had a brain scan in 2023. And again, when they found cancer. I knew it was going faster when he lost the ability to read and form coherent sentences. And I knew what was coming when he slowly became more and more angry.
It’s been a long process of saying goodbye every time I leave him. And every time, there’s another part of him missing when I see him.
And yet...
Now that the end is approaching fast, it’s still too fast. Too soon. And it makes writing impossible. Emotions take over. My head of cloudy and fuzzy, and I feel tired all the time. Waiting for something that is going to happen that I will never be ready for.
Being a writer and having a creative profession means that most of your work is run and influenced by emotions. Especially for writing reflective essays. It’s challenging to have something to say when all you feel is like you’re falling into a deep, black hole that is forming deep within your body.
As a writer, or someone with a creative profession, most of your work is run and influenced by emotions.
I know not everyone has a good relationship with their parents. I am lucky that I do. But everyone will experience loss at some point. And that leaves a mark. It knocks you out of your comfortable orbit. Leaves you numb and floating through your day. Processing what happened or what is about to happen.
And if there’s one emotion where writing and creativity don’t thrive, it’s numbness.
As creatives, we feel all emotions deeply, fully, and completely. It’s what fuels our work. It doesn’t matter whether that’s fiction or nonfiction.
Writing offers you a way to make sense of the world and what you are feeling. To find the centre of the storm while all the emotions are swirling around you. To make sense of what you feel. Or even be able to name it. There have been many moments where I wasn’t able to voice what I was feeling until I was writing. Even if that is just writing over and over that you’re sad and don’t know what to do. There is something magical about writing by hand. It helps to make space for those emotions on the page. It helps you to ground and centre yourself. To be with the emotions without pushing them away.
Not in a way where you have to force yourself to feel the emotions, or to write them down, but in a gentle way to just let them be. To feel them. Writing has always been the way I help myself make sense of the world. Sometimes it can feel your writing around it too, that you’re not getting to the heart of it. I used to be really frustrated when that happened. But now I know that that is part of the process too. Especially when it comes to grief. Sometimes it’s okay not to dive deeply into it, but to ease yourself into it.
How lucky we are to have those tools available to us. Even if allowing to air those feelings on the page can feel hard.
Grief is a strange process. The last time I went through it was over 16 years ago, and I can’t remember what helped. All I remember is relief that my grandmother didn’t have to suffer anymore. I’d imagine it will be a bit like that, while also feeling like an essential part of my foundation has been kicked out from under me.
Words. Writing. Life. Will have to find a new way to flow. And the further I come in this process, the more I realise it’s all about allowing, and sometimes some gentle forcing, to help yourself do something you love.
And learn to accept that it takes however long it needs to take.
I hope that if you are anywhere in this process, you can too. The words will come back as long as we can be gentle with ourselves.
If you want to write it starts as simple as to just write. Sometimes that’s the hardest step. But you don’t have to do it alone. And you don’t have to figure out what a writing life could look like on your own.
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I am so sorry for what you are going through. Grief can definitely feel so heavy, and the words sometimes disappear, or get all muddled up. You still write beautifully. And I guess writing reflects life, and both can be messy. There are seasons in both. It's not always easy to accept it, but like you say, the words will always come back. You are a writer and an artist, and that will always be true.
Thank you for sharing your words and these photos.