6 Months of Grief Project: Day 51

Turkey Easter

This is Day 51 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

It's Easter Sunday today and fortunately, that has never been a very special or important holiday to my husband and I, so I don't feel the deep despair that holidays bring out in me, during my grief. I do love the first days of Spring, when the land I live on seems to come even more alive and vibrant with new growth and baby animals being born. The wild turkeys have been strutting through our yard and singing their crazy gobble songs and delighting my friend Johanna, who has been visiting from New York. She's on a plane back home and now it's just me and the turkeys again. I'm going to have gluten-free, strawberry rhubarb pie with some good friends later, so there will be laughter and connection, which I need more than ever these days. Life continues to happen, even though my husband is gone. In the end, that's a good thing. I will continue to watch the seasons change without him, and I hope that someday it won't hurt quite as much.

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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 with 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:

Art with Grief:

• Photographer [Sarah Treanor] Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death by Jillian Wong
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing

• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief

• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Loses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine

• 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

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.