Death and Grieving Art Healing

Working with art to deal with death and grieving

One of the hardest things i've had to deal in life was grieving my boyfriend's death when I was 24 years old. He was the first man I was ever in love with, my best friend, my mentor, and my savior in the sense that he gave me a belief in myself that I hadn't had until then.

He died in 1984 and I stil grieve his death; I have spent the past 20 years doing that grieving using various forms of artwork, including songwriting, painting, journaling, and collage, to name a few.

When someone dies that you love dearly, there are so many stages of grieving you go through. I don't think anyone really understands how complex grieving a death is. Death is not something that is talked about much in this culture. And in movies it is always depicted as something that doesn't really affect us emotionally, or something that the deceased one can come back from.

I've gone through many stages of grieving, and i am still going through them. The first stage, of course, was total devastation and lose mixed with disbelief. I went through that stage for about 2 years. Waking up each morning with a huge sense of dread about having to face another day. Back then I didn't know anything about healing artwork, and so i had no way of dealing with the loneliness, anger and depression.

The stage I went through after that was what I've come to refer to as the "soap opera" stage, in which I kept looking for him in every crowded place, thinking that it must be a mistake; that he was put into witness protection and would come find me. That stage overlapped with the initial grieving stage and went on for years. I think when our society doesn't prepare us for death, we don't know how to accept it as a reality, and we treat it like we see in the movies.

But I won't go on and on about all the stages went I through. I will share with you, however, some of my artwork that helped me get through David's death, and continues to help me celebrate his life and love.

Memory Book

One of the most helpful and lasting things I did was to create a book about David. I put my thoughts, memories, poems that he wrote to me, and photos in it, along with my wishes and dreams of the life that we would never have. I still look through it now and then when I am missing him. And now and then I will add something new to it, like letters to him telling him about things that are happening in my life. I expect that I will be reading this book and adding to it when I am 90 years old.

Songwriting as Healing Art

Another form of art healing that I have used over the years to deal with David's death has been songwriting. It doesn't matter if you aren't a songwriter, any form of writing, such as poetry, will work. When I first started using songwriting to help in my grieving, I couldn't get through the end of a line without sobbing. Over the past twenty years of writing songs, I've cried rivers when writing, rewriting, and singing these songs. I know this sounds really sappy, but if you've lost someone you've loved deeply, then you can understand. Some people might think that its just prolonging the pain, but crying is our bodies way of healing emotionally.

Here are some partial lyrics from several of my songs.

from "Feel You Near Me"Now you sleep forever far away in kentuckyunder the stars.There's a monument I'm building for youwith my guitar, in the rain.

from "Flower Bed"Long train ride down through the yearspullin' with me a cargo of tearsto water your flower bed.Are stone angels still prayingas they watch you sleepdeep in your flower bed.

from "I Remember You Too Clearly"Rage of man live onfighting love and loving fear.Was this old world touchedby the time that you gave here?Can one being build a world of laughter?

Healing Art with Collage

One of the latest pieces of artwork I've created around David's death was a collage. I was dealing with a breakup over a man that I really had some feelings for and was wondering if I would ever find someone special. I thought about how much David had loved me and I immediately felt much better. So I created a collage to help me hold onto that feeling and to remind me of his love.

For this collage, I used a photograph that I took of an angel statue in a cemetary. I wrote on a seperate piece of paper anything that came to mind, and then cut the sentences into strips and pasted them onto the collage. I then colored it in using colored pencils. Here is the finished artwork.

Over the years I've created lots of artwork around David's death, some serious and some just for my own healing. Each time I spend time creating artwork, I heal a little bit more. I also believe that everytime I create new artwork for David, that I am adding a little bit more love and beauty to the world.

Grieving the Suicide of Someone You Love? Get Help Now.

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