A Song of Love & Memory: The Art of Creative Grief
Content Warning: Death
I was never an avid churchgoer, but I recently found there is one thing about going to church which I look forward to, and that’s the ability to sing the songs among a chorus of others. I’m usually quite embarrassed by my singing voice, and I’ll avoid carrying a tune unless I’m completely alone—usually in the car or shower, because I can’t get more cliche than that. But I have never had a problem singing my heart out in church. It isn’t the lyrics that make my eyes well with tears as I unashamedly belt out the hymns and verses; it’s remembering my grandma and how much she loved to do the same.
I always wanted to sing with my grandma when she was alive, and more than once I almost plucked up the courage to ask her if I could. But I was too afraid I wasn’t “good enough” and people would laugh at me. I will always regret being too scared of what others might think to spend more memorable, precious moments with my grandma.
But my experience has not been in vain. I consciously think about her every time I belt out the lyrics of a song that I’m passionate about, and that emotion allows me to spend a moment with my Grammy, singing like no one can hear me but her. I can see her smile and urge me to continue, because practice makes perfect. I spend the moments I didn’t have with her in memoriam—a way to honor her memory and bring joy to myself in the process.
There’s nothing quite like allowing yourself to grieve in a way which helps you come away from the experience with hope and joy rather than helpless emptiness. Your loved ones wouldn’t want you to feel depressed when you think of them! They’d want you to enjoy life and be grateful for the time you spent together. How can I make so bold a claim? I imagine I’m dead, of course, and shift my perspective. How would I want my loved ones to feel now that I’m dead? Your classic movie line would be, “To move on,” but it isn’t so simplistic. Moving on is a slow progression. It lasts much longer for some than for others. Grief is a very individualistic process which all of us will have to endure, so my advice is to make it wholly yours.
SELF-PRESERVATION VS. THE NEED TO FALL APART
There’s a surreal period in the weeks after someone you love has died where you’re not quite sure what just happened. You know, deep down, that this person is gone, but your surface thoughts haven’t caught up to your rational brain, and you keep thinking that you’ll be able to talk to them, to see them, that their birthday is coming up and you’re pondering what to get them—and then it hits you, as if the impact of your surface and rational thoughts crashing into each other manifests into a physical sensation. Your eyes well up with tears and your lip begins to tremble, and you find yourself overcome with emotion. This temporary amnesia gives us license to succumb to the tears. Did we just forget? Or is this merely a method of self-preservation which our body has designed in order to save us from a debilitating depression?
Were we to think about our losses every day, we would be stuck, paralyzed and unable to continue to live our lives. We have a survival instinct which generally (definitely not always) prevents us from regressing into a state where we can’t continue to survive. Our body’s survivalist perception and the reality of grief are two contradictory entities, forever butting heads. The only way to exist within these two states is to allow love to overpower both. You are capable of grieving without falling apart, and you don’t have to internalize your emotional turmoil in order to survive. The key to this internal compromise is activating your right-sided brain and tapping into your creative problem-solving skills. For some, this is a much more difficult ask than others, but we all have the ability. Find the creative niche that coincides with the deceased.
BEQUESTS ARE MORE THAN INHERITANCE
& MAKE YOU INFINITELY MORE WEALTHY
I’ve had a lot of time to find my own creative ways of grieving my loved ones. My Uncle Mac was the first person who I was close to who passed away. It was Halloween and I had decided to give the TV show Supernatural a try. I made it to the third episode when my mom came into the living room, telling me my uncle was “gone.” As a way of remembering him, every year on Halloween I watch the first three episodes of Supernatural. Not that he liked or even knew of the show, but I associated his death with that experience—of being frightened but also trying something new, and the marvelous humor sprinkled throughout the show was like a comforting blanket during a time where I didn’t quite understand what was going on. This was my very first attempt at creative grieving, and it helped to alleviate the intensity of the grief by using a familiar routine and catering to my OCD.
I was much closer to my grandparents, so it was more difficult to cope when they passed. I was lucky to have spent so much time with them in life, but sometimes I get to spend even more time with them now. I’ll explain what I mean, so I don’t sound like I’m insane or delusional. I may be both, but not for this reason…
When I sing in private, my mind always comes back to Grammy Kubica and her beautiful singing voice. I can see her smile and imagine that I’m with her again, and we were able to sing together without the expectation or fear of other. She takes my arm and smiles at me, and maybe a tear falls from my cheek, but I can hold it together. Knowing we’re together gives me strength that I don’t know I have—but she always did. She saw me and loved me unconditionally, and I need that encouragement from her. So I take it where I can get it, and that is when I pour myself, body and soul, into a song, and my grandma is there to hear it—hear my woes and insecurities—and sing it with me, as a way of telling me that she’s listening, she knows, and she still loves me, and the more love I feel, the louder I become. Because…
[H]er memory gives me the confidence I need to keep surviving but also striving to be a better person, to build on the strength I already have.
A creative act can be the conduit of bringing a loved one back to life—not in the physical sense but in their emotional and psychological substance. The love they had for you, the bright future they saw for you, the parts of you they loved the most—these are not gone when their body is. They live within you as memory. What you have to do to access them—without dissolving into a blubbering mess, that is—is to find a creative outlet that you can both relate to and which you both love(d).
My Papa Kozi loved to fish. Fishing was his life, much to the chagrin of my grandma. Now, I’m no fisherwoman, but I went out with Papa as much as I could (when I could drag myself out of bed at 5am, or 7 if he and Dad went out for a few hours before they came to pick me up). Now that he’s gone, any time I get a chance to go out on the lake, I spend the quiet moments casting and reeling in as if Papa were sitting next to me in the boat, telling me to cast in this spot or that, because that’s where the fish will be. I always trusted his ability to radar where the fish were (what we call ‘mastery’ nowadays—something I always looked up to and wished I could attain, albeit not for aquatic migratory patterns).
An unspoken trust and his quiet, peaceful nature are things that I always treasured about Papa, and which I emulate in my quiet introvert moments before I sit down to write—my own version of going fishing (the only difference is that I fish for thoughts and ideas, and they can be just as unwilling, evasive and obstinate as a trout or bass, but when you’ve set that hook and reeled ‘er in, it’s just as much of a thrill).
The kitchen was Grammy Kozi’s realm. She was a master in her craft, as well, and she could bake a mean Pepsi cake or zucchini bread. I always loved her strawberry-rhubarb pies, as did the rest of the family. (My aunt and I found a rhubarb wine and i like to drink a glass to her every now and then. It’s as sweet as her pie always was.) Her Christmas cookies were to die for. She would bake for a bake sale and all of her goodies were gone within the first ten minutes. The love she put into her dishes was evident, and that’s why we very rarely had leftovers. I always looked up to the community she had built around her, the loving nature of her friendships, and the way she was a ‘pillar’ of every community she ever lived in. I have developed my cooking skills slowly over the years, and I try not to use recipes like she never seemed to.
When I cook and bake, I feel Grammy’s tenacity and fun spirit enlivening me, and I can feel a sense of pride in making things from scratch—of creating something wonderful from a collection of pieces which, separate, would be tasteless, terrible or at best bland. The more I’ve developed my cooking and hosting skills, the more I’ve realized how exciting it can be to create anew—or adding a dash of rosemary or a bit of vanilla extract—can turn on my creative brain and make me crave more. And when Grammy is there with me, squeezing my hand and smiling, I know that no matter what I decide to do to the dish, it’s gonna come out delicious.
Her faith in my abilities, even when I don’t have any myself, can sustain me until I triumph over the self-doubt and find myself again.
All of my grandparent’s had a wonderful sense of humor, but Papa Kubica’s was just a little more… blunt. He was a very honest man, and he wove that honesty into his humor in a very witty way. When his health was declining, we took him to the arboretum for something different to do. My aunt was wheeling him in his wheelchair and I was wheeling his oxygen tank alongside—except we’re not the most coordinated people on the face of the Earth. Somehow we managed to get his oxygen line tangled up and we’re laughing so hard we’re nearly peeing our pants, and my grandpa was just sitting there with this look on his face—like he might have been annoyed if he weren’t completely used to our antics at this point. A couple walks by and upon seeing our ridiculous predicament says to my grandpa, “You let these guys take care of you?” And he just looks back with a profoundly resigned expression, shrugs and says, “I don’t have a choice.” The laughter that erupted from all parties put a gentle smile on his face.
His preferred way to address me was “Amy Baby” and he used to sing Sinatra’s Once in Love with Amy whenever I walked into a room. I honor his memory and all the things he taught me whenever I make a careful deadpan joke and can hold my laughter in to make sure it hits just right, and I definitely stole his favorite hoodie and still cuddle in it when I feel like I need a hug from him. And of course I played Once in Love with Amy at my wedding during the Father-Daughter dance. When the memories of Papa surface, it always puts a smile on my face.
NOW YOU TRY
Losing a loved one can be the most heart-wrenching experience you have in life—especially when you were very close. The closer you are, the more it hurts—which is why many people distance themselves from relationships and wish to isolate. But the pain—as horrible as it is—is there for a reason. It’s there to remind you that the relationship you had with this person was so meaningful, so impactful to your life, and so wonderful that you not only emotionally but physically feel the pain of their separation from your life. But the amazing thing about loss—it has a way of making things clearer than they ever were before, especially the existential bits. You never realize with such clarity all that someone meant to you until you’ve lost them. It’s a jarring way to learn more about you, to understand yourself better, and maybe make it a priority to emulate the qualities that you saw in your loved one to make a better life for yourself. Honestly, that’s all they want for you anyway (as I said, I can talk to ghosts, so I know this stuff).
So find a way to merge your creativity with theirs. Starting with hobbies is the easiest, because it’s the most obvious (because you don’t do hobbies that you hate). Maybe your grandpa liked to work on cars, but you don’t even know how to open the hood of your own vehicle. Your hobby is interior decoration. To combine these, re-decorate the entire interior of your car as a way of spending time with the memories of your grandpa. Talk to him while you’re working (contrary to popular belief and cynicism, talking to deceased loved ones is totally normal, and don’t let anyone tell you differently), maybe play his favorite type of music on the radio. Bond with him in a way that creates memories which you didn’t have the opportunity to make when he was alive. Right wrongs, tell him secrets or your accomplishments since he passed. Draw it out and make it a years-long project if you wish. Make it yours. And his.
The road is endless, and your sweet ride is going to be decked out as you drive down Memory Lane.
Everyone’s grief experience is unique, even if the stages of grief are ultimately the same. In order to find the best path forward after your loss, make the time you grieve not only selective—so that the waves don’t crash into you only at unexpected times—but also as meaningful as you can. Honor your loved ones with the things they enjoyed the most and meld it into an activity that you enjoy doing, too. It can be as simple as making a recipe, a joke, a routine… or singing a song. Give power to it, suffuse it with meaning, and I promise you—you will find solace, peace, and meaning beyond your wildest hopes. Hope is what we must cling to during these times, and a bit of creative thinking is all we need to find it. That’s not to say that you won’t shed some tears—that isn’t the point of this type of grief at all. In fact, if you don’t break down crying during Creative Grief, I’d be surprised.
