6 Months of Grief Project: Day 80

Shot Through the Heart

This is Day 80 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 have been having dreams about being a wounded animal, often shot by arrows. It wasn't until this evening, as I was cleaning up the house that I realized that my late husband made arrows when he was a kid. He saved these arrows and I found them, carefully wrapped in tissue paper in a box that I found when I cleaned out his warehouse. I saved all of them, and they live in a vase in the hallway. After all this time, and 80 days of this project, I finally realized that an image of me and these arrows needed to be taken.

Two of Swords

I experimented with lots of angles. I wanted the arrows to pierce my heart - to reflect how deep the pain goes. But those images didn't feel right when I looked at them. I finally took a picture of the arrows crossed in front of my bare chest and when I looked at it, I knew this was today's Grief image.

Once I saw the image I had created, I immediately thought of the Two of Swords tarot card. It's not a very "positive" card.

It's about:

• blocking emotions
• denying true feelings
• hiding distress
• avoiding the truth
• pretending everything's fine
• ignoring the warning signs
• feeling afraid to act
• reaching an impasse
• staying stuck
• refusing to decide

I'm certainly navigating everything on that list on a variety of levels. It's hard to stay present and clear about the mistakes I'm making right now. I have been making some really bad choices and potentially being in denial about why I am making those choices. I think I'm actually "playing the widow card" right now. Like, "It's okay that I'm doing this. I'm a heartbroken widow. I have to do what I need to survive right now." Maybe the woman in the Two of Swords image is a widow.

El venado herido / The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo (1946)

Today's Grief image also reminds me of Frida Kahlo's 1946 painting, El venado herido / The Wounded Deer, which also harkens back to my dreams of being a hunted, wounded animal.

This painting in particular was created towards the end of Kahlo's life, when she was struggling with a lot of health issues that finally killed her. In the painting, Frida Kahlo is an animal/human hybrid, with nine arrows impaled in her body. These arrows have made bleeding wounds, but she shows little sign of pain. In fact, she is strong, staring straight into our eyes. In my Grief image, my eyes are closed, more like the blindfolded woman in the Two of Swords tarot card.

The antlers on Kahlo's head are those of a stag, which is a male deer. So Kahlo is representing herself as part male and part female, as well as animal/human. Some say this is a reflection of her own fluid sexuality. When I first saw this painting, I was only a teenager and I resonated so deeply with it. I had been "wounded" by my first break-up and I realized I probably had many more to come.

Today's Grief image, the Two of Swords tarot card, and Frida Kahlo's Wounded Deer all feel connected to me. There are dark forces at work in my life. My abandonment issues are at an all-time high. I am a hunted, wounded animal and I am also the hunter. I keep putting my heart in dangerous situations and closing my eyes, hoping for the best, while my heart is pummeled by arrows - arrows made by my late husband, when he was a teenager.

My wounds run red and deep. My grief is vast. My heart is broken.

_____________________

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:

• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• 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 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.

6 Months of Grief Project: Day 3

Tools of a Widow

This is Day 3 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

Well, we're getting racy already and it's only Day 3! My apologies if you are shocked by what you see in today's images. I think sex, especially women's sexuality and specifically widow's sexuality is still a taboo in our culture and that really enrages me. It is yet another way that women are silenced, that our power is muffled and that we are made to feel shame and judgment about something that is completely natural.

I'm 43-years-old and have lost my love and my lover. Suddenly, my bed is empty. It's cold and lonely. But facing the prospect of dating at this moment in my life is unthinkable. I need people around me who love and care for me, not awkward coffee dates with strangers. Now, I have been spending some time with a sweet, sexy friend from the past, which I highly recommend if you are a new widow and have this kind of person in your life. It's easy and comfortable, because he knows me and cares for me and I know him and trust him. We are clear about boundaries and we have no illusions about what this relationship could or could not be.

When we first started spending time together, I felt a lot of guilt and shame. But then I realized that the very FIRST person to encourage me to have pleasure and intimate connection with another human being, would be my husband. 

Another aspect of sudden widowhood that hit me out of nowhere is a much higher sex drive, stemming from deep grief. All widows grieve differently, but my grief seems to include a deep desire for sex. Since I can't see my friend every day(!), I've had to make use of a tool to help out with that, and I think it's pretty clear what that tool is...

If you want to see an animated GIF of this image, check out my Instagram feed.

The other tool featured in this image is a giant butcher's cleaver. I chose this particular knife for this photo because my husband was the one who used the cleaver in the house. He was a lover of meat (his last name was Hunter, after all!) and he was always grilling up something delicious for us to eat. He was also a frugal meat buyer, so he would always bring home whole chickens, or large pig parts from a nearby farm and chop it up in our kitchen with his trusty meat cleaver. This was his job and he loved it. I would never have taken up that cleaver when he was alive.

But now he is dead and I have to take care of myself. I taught myself how to use it correctly, and keep it sharp. A widow needs her tools. What are your tools, as you grieve your loss?

I welcome any kind of support or connection around this grieving process. Connecting with other widows has been one of my life savers, so feel free to comment here, or connect with me on my Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and/or Pinterest page on Grief.

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.