GRIEVING CREATIVELY
Friday, April 12, 2024
Missing the Many along with the Man
Monday, September 11, 2023
THE SONGS THAT SHARE SPACE IN SUFFERING
It seems a strange place to find myself crying with songs that my sister never listened to.
Shortly after Jennifer died, I assembled a collection of songs into a playlist entitled "Jennifer". I needed a musical oasis to go to when I felt like I needed to feel her loss. At first I tried to find songs that connected me to the loss itself, but as the list grew, I found myself throwing songs in the list for various reasons.
Some of the songs from the Grease Soundtrack made it in, because Jennifer went to see that movie in the theatre with her Grade 7 class. I added Bon Jovi, because that was one of her favourite bands. I threw country songs in because she was a farmer. I included a lot of eighties music that she might have listened to forty years ago. I found love songs that made me cry when I listened to them. Some songs more than others bring emotion to the surface and some just help me imagine the two of us singing along with them.
The more I listen to the playlist, I realize it is about me more than her. Sometimes I need to cry, sometimes I need the passion of rock and roll just to get me to the next moment in my life. Music came back to my world after she died. I had taken a break from listening to music because I couldn't find myself in the songs I was listening to. But when I look at my "Jennifer" playlist... there are songs I still can't find myself in, but they still somehow share space with me in my loss. I may ask myself "Why did I put that song in?' one day, and then the next time I listen to it, I understand that it has a place there.
I still need to feel the loss. I need to wade in the waters a little longer so that I can embrace this new life with authenticity. I'm not going to move along just because the world is done crying. I may have to wait until it's me in my truck with my playlist turned up before I can be that authentic, but I will find the space to be real. I am grateful for the artists that are sharing space with me on this journey, including: Tim Minchin, Anne Murray, Lucy Thomas, Il Divo, Reo Speedwagon, Chicago, Air Supply, Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, Boston, Journey, John Denver, Garth Brooks... and the list keeps growing.
In the end, it doesn't matter what song comes up. Jennifer loved music from such an early age. It seems fitting that I would remember her between each note and lyric.
* * *
There is a song from my playlist that I want to share with you. It is the only song that has my sister singing in it.
Forty-one years ago (1982) , my sister was part of a high school choir. One of the songs they did was a musical number called "Samson and Delilah". My Dad had his tape recorder handy and recorded the choir singing it. Four years later when I was in choir, our director chose the same musical to sing. I found the recording that Dad made and shared it with the choir. We had a lot of fun with that song. It was the only song where we could ditch our choir robes and somber stance and have fun acting it out.
“Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life.”
―Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
Friday, August 18, 2023
FINDING COMMON GROUND IN GRIEF
Today is one month. One month since July 18; one month since my sister died; one month of being an only child.
On the last day of July, I stood up at the front of her church and described our relationship in these words: "We were polar opposites". I even made a list in my iPhone of all the differences and they were many. It's not hard to find my sister and I on very different planets of existence... and now more than ever.
Here are a few that stick out that I had on my list:
Jennifer Ruby
White Chocolate Dark Chocolate
Farm dweller Small Town resident
Fiction reader Non Fiction reader
Mother Auntie
Size 6 feet Size 11 feet
Hated shopping Loved shopping
Queen bed King Bed
Musician Poet/Writer
Dog Grandma Cat Mom
Christian Agnostic Atheist
It's not hard to find the differences, it's what divided us for fifty five years. We were never best friends. I think for the most part of my life, I felt like I was tolerated by her. She put up with me because we shared the same parents. But something happened when she became a mother. She shared her gift with me. I felt included in her life when her sons came along. They became the part of her that found space with me. They were the first experience of common ground with us. Those boys brought us together in a way we couldn't do before they came. We found a common affection and a common love for two human beings that changed our lives.
How does the journey look now that she doesn't breathe anymore? Now I get to keep looking for common ground. I found a piece of that puzzle yesterday. My cousin emailed me Jennifer's graduation picture. I didn't have it in my vast library of photos, so I was very grateful to get it. I dug out my graduation photo and put them together. It was stunning how the similarities mixed well with the differences. So much of the stories lined up. We had the same photographer (Dad); we had similar styles of dresses; complementary and differing colours; the trees were the chosen backdrop for the photos.
Maybe this journey of grief will uncover more common ground for my sister and I. Even through her feet aren't around to walk on it, maybe I can still find her "Footprints in the Sand".
"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Thomas Campbell
Friday, April 28, 2023
MY FOUR LEGGED GRIEF PARTNER
A phone call from my sister today brought news of the death of a dear friend and family member. Gunnar was my nephew Ben's Rottweiler. I still remember as we drove up to the trailer where everyone was gathered that evening of the day Ben died. There was Gunnar, waiting on the deck for his "Papa". So many people had gathered at the trailer and some were strangers to Gunnar. He wasn't going to move from his post. He saw all these people walk into Ben's trailer and he only had eyes waiting for one man to come home.
Gunnar was the first one that night that got a tearstained hug from me. That dog lost so much that night, and he didn't even know it. Maybe he had a sense of something. It is hard to understand what animals pick up from humans. But I was told that he didn't move off the deck for at least a week. He kept waiting.
I spent this afternoon compiling pictures of Gunnar and discovered that most of them were taken from 2017 and later... after Ben died. It was then that I realized that all the time I spent with Gunnar was in response to loss and grief. I didn't know who needed who the most, but every chance we got to be together, I had my iPhone handy and I got selfies, videos and pictures of my big brown furry four-legged friend. I was collecting memories and today, I was amazed at how many I had.
Gunnar was my connection to Ben. I could no longer go and see Ben, but Gunnar was there waiting for me. I could talk to him and share my sadness with him. He said nothing, but his kisses and companionship were all I needed to be reassured that he understood my pain. I will never know how and when he started to cry, but a while back he started having problem with his eyes. Maybe it took a while, but the tears finally caught up for him.
I miss my friend. He is more than a memory of my nephew, he is a friend all unto his own. He is my family and as I say in my video... my best friend in the canine world. Maybe that is because we found communion together.
Here is the video that I made for him today. I call it my "Love Letter" to Gunnar.
"Love walks on four legs as much as it walks on two."
Ruby Neumann
Saturday, January 28, 2023
WHEN ANNIVERSARIES COLLIDE