6 Months of Grief Project: Day 145

Hermes Trismegistus

This is Day 145 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've been teaching myself how to Snapchat for some reason, and I like all the halos and bippity bobs it can superimpose on my images. My friend pointed out that I am channeling my namesake in this picture, Hermes Trismegistus. The Greek god Hermes, some say, harkens back to the Egyptian god, Thoth and when my husband heard my full name for the first time, he got very excited because he was deeply connected through research and reading about Thoth. It's yet another way he and I connected with each other, when we first met.

My name has always been a good litmus test for interesting people. Those that know its origins are always fascinating, eclectic, and open-minded people.

Something a lot of people have been saying to me lately is that the love I shared with my husband is a "once in a lifetime" experience and that I am lucky to have had it once, as most people never have it. I know this is meant to make me feel good, but it doesn't. It breaks my heart all over again and makes me feel extremely sad about the future. I still have that love inside me, even though my beloved husband is dead. Does this mean I cannot have "another great love" in my life? Is it selfish of me to want that?

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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:

• What Joe Biden Has Said About Dealing With Personal Tragedy And Grief
• 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.