Grief Projects

Grief Projects

When my husband suddenly passed away in his sleep, I was thrown into a living a nightmare I thought I would never wake up from. Sometimes it still feels like that, but art, writing and other forms of creating saves my life every day, as I process my grief.

6 months after he passed away, I created the 6 Months of Grief Project, in which I made an image and wrote a post every single day for six months. That project ended on the one year anniversary of his death. When I finished that project, I fell into a deep depression and realized that I needed to keep creating around my grief, so I started Surviving Year Two, in which I check in and share my art and writing once a week.

We shall see what the future holds. Thanks for being a witness.

________________________

Grief Resources

These are an eclectic selection of grief resources I have collected for myself as I move through my grief. I hope they can be helpful to you too. When I find a new resource, I will return here to add it to the list. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Author SARK speaks to Kim Corbin about the loss of her partner and their Succulent Wild Love
• 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:

• Vitamin D Deficiency & Depression
• 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

The End of my 6 Months of Grief Project

The End

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

I did it. 183 posts. One post a day for 6 months. When I started, he was 6 months gone. Today he has been dead an entire year. Last night, friends came over and we had a bonfire. We burned spices in the fire and told stories about him. It was good way to spend this hard time.

I am amazed by this project. I will miss it and I'm also relieved that it is over. What comes next? We shall see how it all unfolds. I don't have many words right now. I just feel loved and hopeful.

Thank you to all of you for following along. One of the most important parts of this project is to be witnessed and I am so grateful to you all.

See you next time.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 182

Out at Sea

This is Day 182 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 is the eve of the first anniversary of my husband's death. I feel out at sea. But all day I have been getting calls and messages of love and support. In this morning's meditation at work, my colleagues chanted his name. Yesterday, I received a beautiful surprise bouquet. Tonight, I have a good friend making me dinner and tucking me in. Tomorrow, friends start showing up at my home to celebrate his life and death with a memorial bonfire. I feel held. I feel loved. I feel cared for. I am grateful. I am humbled. I am hopeful that healing will continue to come and wash me out to sea and back to shore again. I ride the tides.

Today's image is actually a screenshot from a short video I made on my lunch break, down by the Bel Marin Keys. You can see it on my Instagram feed.

_________________________

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:

• Author SARK speaks to Kim Corbin about the loss of her partner and their Succulent Wild Love
• 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.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 181

Scavenged Lotus

This is Day 181 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

As we approach the end of this project and the one-year anniversary of my husband's death looms over me, it's like all the energy is being sucked out of my body. I am having trouble feeding myself and I'm not sleeping at all. I have been walking through this week like a zombie, hoping that I'm heading in the right direction, but having no ambition to actually figure it all out.

Friends are coming on Saturday to be around the fire and celebrate his life... and his death. I wish I could sit around that fire forever, until I too catch fire and burn up into ashes. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like my life without him. I don't like myself without him. He saw the beauty and brilliance in me. How do I see that in myself? I don't know how to do any of this.

_________________________

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.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 180

Big as a Redwood

This is Day 180 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

This photo was taken 3 years ago today. We were driving back from a trip to Portland, Oregon through the Avenue of the Giants. My husband was a giant and I thought he would live as long as those old redwood trees in the forest. 

My grief spirals in and out, like the spirals inside that tree. I want to feel those giant arms around me again.

_________________________

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.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 179

From Hoisting to Cubicle Drag

This is Day 179 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I haul my grief-filled, over-tired, anxious body out of bed and go lift weights before starting my work day. Because I work out at a super old school weightlifting gym, there are no showers, or changing rooms or lockers — just a bathroom. So I do my best to clean up, change into my cubicle drag and hit the road. I love lifting weights, despite a painful shoulder injury I've had since March. I can't imagine not doing it. But trying to keep up with this schedule is making me feel like a zombie. I also know that just being in grief, without any other life commitments also makes me feel like a zombie, so I might as well lift and at least make my body feel better.

But is this schedule killing me? Sometimes I feel like it might be. Not getting enough sleep is the absolute worst feeling in the word. It effects every part of my being. But I don't know what or how I can change. It is tough to navigate these life choices. My husband was always so good at giving me counsel in these situations. He knew me so well, and was extremely good at thinking outside the box, coming up with creative solutions I would have never thought of. I'm not so good at doing that on my own.

_________________________

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.

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.

_________________________

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.