6 Months of Grief Project: Day 5

Kinesio tape becomes my black heart armband.

This is Day 5 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Today was a long day, where I did not have much time to think and imagine around what my grief means to me today. In fact, when the sun set this evening, I had no idea what I was going to share with you on this Day of Grief. That's kind of one of my favorite parts about this project - that it is just for today. I have no idea how I will be and feel with my grief tomorrow. There is only here. There is only now.

I have a small tear in my rotator cuff and my fantastic chiropractor has been helping me heal it. Sometimes after she works on me, she uses kinesio tape to hold the adjustment and basically give my muscles a little break from the trauma of healing. Afterwards, I went to therapy and my therapist noticed that it looked like an upside-down heart and also invoked the black armband of mourning.

I love this imagery so much. As Valentine's Day approaches, I love that I am wearing an upside-down black heart. I love that I am wearing a black armband of mourning. It makes me miss the days when widows would wear their "mourning weeds" to signify that they had lost a loved one. The source of this tradition ends up being more about fashion than deep mourning, but I still resonate with some kind of public statement of loss through the wearing of black... or simply a black armband. I want the world to know that I am in deep mourning and to treat me a little more gently, perhaps.

Perhaps that is an upcoming spiritual craft project for me. What accessory or piece of clothing could signify my own personal mourning?

And since I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing 

• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow

• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief 

• The Sun Magazine interview with Francis Weller, called The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses by Tim McKee

• The poetry of John O’Donohue

• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.