6 Months of Grief Project: Day 178

Beeeeeeeing Funny

This is Day 178 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

At least once a week, I try to improvise with my funny, smart friends (sometimes we even do it live on the air). I've also been playing around with Snapchat (find me at RevTristy) and have been oddly inspired by all the strange filters and goofy extras it has. This weekend, my friend Huskey and I decided to do a Snapchat version of the iconic Goodfellas "Clown Scene." This is the result (and be aware that there's tons of cursing, because it's Goodfellas!

I like experimenting with new mediums and mixing seemingly opposite things together. I like laughing. I love making other people laugh. I like distractions. Lots of people are enjoying our little video and I hope we can do more — perhaps even do a series — which sounds like a really fun, distracting project.

I also can't help but think how much my late husband would have LOVED this. He always supported my weird comedy projects and proudly shared the things I made with all his friends, like a proud parent. It meant so much to me, to have his exuberant support, and my god, how I loved making him laugh. Maybe he's watching over my shoulder and laughing. Maybe he's showing our video to all his Spirit Friends and Family. I hope so.

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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:

• Filmmaker Gemma Green Hope made a short animation in memory of her grandmother 
• Photographer Sarah Treanor Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death
• 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:

• Open to Hope: Finding Hope After Loss
• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Second Firsts with Christina Rasmussen
• Death and Broken Cups by Ivan Cenzi
• What Joe Biden Has Said About Dealing With Personal Tragedy And Grief
• Death, Grief & Shattered Assumptions
• Stifled Grief: How the West Has It Wrong
• How Grief Can Make You Sick
• What's Your Grief?
• The Grief Geek
• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The writings of Tim Lawrence
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
• 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 Losses, 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.