On Bereaved Writing

Last weekend I led a writing workshop at a healing retreat. I don’t have an MFA and I am not a journalist. Initially, when I received the ask, I (full-bodied) rebuffed the notion. I have nothing to offer. I am one bereaved mother, among many, trying to navigate my place in a world that is entirely new to me since the loss of June.

One-and-a-half years after my child died, I am relearning how to get out of bed in the morning. The first moments of my day often begin when it’s dark, and when my consciousness doesn’t yet know if I am alive or if I am dead. A fluctuating theme or fear, depending on the day. I have nothing to offer.

I’m relearning how to talk to my living children, and how not to scare them when I talk (in front of them) to June. I’m learning how to talk to June just enough so she doesn’t think her Mama’s forgotten her while simultaneously convincing myself I haven’t completely lost my mind (yet). Some days I don’t utter her name at all because I don’t have any of this quite right. The expectation is I never will. The bar is extremely low. Navigating my new way of being is awkward and uncomfortable. I worry when I don’t say June’s name, that June on occasion, thinks I’ve forgotten her. It hurts me to think it might hurt her. On those days, I release the pain through tears as I fold into the sacredness of her being. Through my writing, I know June knows that her Mama is always thinking of her, as I edit the words aloud.

Resolving how to incorporate all three of my children at once into any given situation is something I continually work on. The one who is not here is left out, unless it is she, June, who I am spending time with. The two who are here, my living children, are always left out when all I can see is June’s face, and when my brain will only allow for me to replay the days from a hospital room where she and I spent time together.

The semantics surrounding the death of June plays into everyday conversation between me and my kids. For example, when I tell our son he has the most wonderful big sister in front of my living daughter. I wince because what if June heard that? I vow to tailor the statement next time to, “you have the most wonderful living older sister,” or “you have the most wonderful sisters,” just in case June is listening from the rafters. I scold myself I cannot give my brilliant eldest daughter the recognition she deserves. Recognition that doesn’t live in the shadow of her deceased sister. These thoughts originated after June died. They have not changed. I am learning how to cope and apply meaning so to continue on with life. I have changed, however, and it’s no longer odd to me that I am experiencing identical sentiments to those which began just after June died. I cannot shake these sentiments. They continue to emerge as I try valiantly to incorporate all three of my children at once. Had you asked me in the days following June’s death, I would have imagined that I’d have most of this figured out by now, one-and-a-half years later. I don’t have it figured out yet, so how could I possibly have something to offer?

How do I address my dead child and my living children at once? The three of them incarnated at the same time, nearly coexisted on earth together had June not passed eight weeks before our son was born. An almost fully formed version of my son existed inside of me while June and her sister lived and breathed the air outside of my body. The four of us together, living, thriving, surviving, occurred once. Now, the divide of death separates my three children. My three babies, as they will always be, yet now my eldest daughter and my son and June exist separately. It’s one or the other. It’s life or death. Living or dying. Living and dying are my reality. Both are representative of my children, and now directly representative of me. Life is the present moment and death is what’s hanging over that moment. Death is not synonymous with June, although June has a knack for also hanging over my every moment.

When I was asked to lead a writing workshop at the healing retreat by a fellow bereaved and dear friend, my gut told me that I had nothing to offer. I let the thought sit. I rolled it around in my mind like a ball of clay. It began to take shape. I came to understand what writing means to me and if it means this much to me, then it might mean this much to another bereaved parent, and maybe they haven’t discovered it yet. Discovered that writing is healing and by constructing a feeling on a page you are giving language to the bodily sensation evoked by a situation or memory surrounding the death of your child. Writing is pouring the feeling onto the page and having it land there, almost magically, in the shape of words. The pen is the fountain, my hand which holds the pen, the portal. My fingertips which type on the keyboard are the transcribers of my emotions. I shed emotions into words and leave them on the paper. Leaving some suffering behind when I walk away. Letting that suffering go, maybe this time for good. Walking away a tiny bit more healed with a better understanding and inner knowledge of myself.

I liken my writing process as a bereaved mother to the process a nursing theorist might take. Nursing theorists give language to the nursing practice. Without theorists, there would be no measure to quantify or qualify what nurses actually do. By writing theories, nurses are articulating what exactly they do for their patients in their practice, as well as how they do it. Nursing theories are the foundation in the evolving standard of nursing care. Nursing theories provide a guide to all nurses. Similarly, writing is a guide I create for me. It’s a memory I create for the future me to reflect back upon. Writing is the overarching story of my life where I apply meaning to something that I may have otherwise overlooked. Writing takes my day to day and makes it whole. With my writing, like nurses and their practical theories, I create a framework from which I am building a new life.

Again, I wonder, what do I have to offer?

I am a bereaved mother in practice. 

Is anyone born to know how to act as a bereaved mother? 

To feel as a bereaved mother feels?

To not completely shut down as a bereaved mother desires?

With my writing, I offer a guide for other bereaved mothers. 

With my writing, I offer a guide for those trying to understand the bereaved mother in their life.

I am quantifying and qualifying my existence, holding space for myself, and fellow bereaved parents while they also suffer. We do not suffer alone. And within great suffering is great healing. From suffering, comes the ability to suffer, comes the ability to grow, to learn and to (one day) no longer suffer. Suffering is a choice, grief is not. I grieve and so many days I choose to suffer as well. I could choose not to suffer. I cannot choose not to grieve. For me, grief is love. Grief is the prescription to loving June. To getting better. If I chose not to suffer, it would look like denial, unacknowledgement of my grief, or a common phrase I often use in conversation, “stuffing my grief.” Choosing not to suffer looks like not allowing myself to feel what I feel. It looks like not allowing my tears to fall. It appears like I am harboring grief. When I cry, suffering is emitted through my tears. Afterward, there is less suffering inside of me. When I write, I evoke the suffering. This I have learned since June died. When I write, I suffer greatly, but then a period of grace follows. The rainbow after the storm appears. This is my framework: the framework of a bereaved mother. I offer no promises, but I can offer hope.

If you are looking for inspiration to begin writing as a bereaved parent, but cannot find it on your own, this writing prompt is for you. A slice of my writing workshop I’d like to share with all of you.

Remember: You don’t have to be a writer by trade or by degree to love and enjoy writing. You don’t even have to enjoy writing for it to begin to heal you.

1.     You are forever connected to your child. As a bereaved parent, I invite you to consider a phrase that most all of us have been told/read/heard since our child has died: “Everything happens for a reason.” The is a phrase that no bereaved parent should ever have to be told by someone else. For a moment, let go of beliefs surrounding this topic, and allow yourself to believe that everything does happen for a reason. Write a list of why you are the reason you are the mother or father of your child.