Writing About My Daughter’s Death Heals Me
“Increasing resilience and decreasing depression one word at a time.”
June and Mama on the eve of her tumor resection surgery — photo by author
I began writing shortly after my daughter June passed away at eighteen months old from neuroblastoma. She nearly completed ten months of aggressive treatment for a solid tumor cancer that grew inward from her adrenal gland and remained hidden for the first eight months of her life.
In the beginning of my new, altered life without June, I wrote so not to forget a single moment I spent with her. I knew in ten years I might not be able to recall certain details of her life, even the gruesome ones that still stand out. Every moment, horrific and not, was part of June’s story, and therefore June. A story that with time would be erased by new memories.
During treatment, I kept a journal but only used it a handful of times. The hospital room was depressing and uninspiring. I feared the hopeless words I scribbled on the page. Would June die? By writing my fears, would they come true?
At first, I wrote down details of what types of chemo she received and which doctors we saw, but that quickly stopped. Instead, in the moments I was alone, after June had fallen asleep, I’d carefully watch her for the next heave, vomiting fit, or endless bout of watery stool that inevitably would form a puddle beneath her and pose a risk for her central line. Every moment was a risk for survival. As June’s mom, the sacred task of keeping her safe and away from death rested like blocks of concrete on each shoulder.
When June was alive, most of my writing was done in a planner that I kept on the corner of the kitchen sink under the coffee cabinet I’d converted to June’s medicine cabinet.
In the planner, I made notes about June’s affect and what medication I had administered and at what time. My grief brain wouldn’t allow for me to remember the last time I administered Zofran.
“June ate a bite of banana today!” I scribbled at the bottom under the “notes” section of the planner. A huge accomplishment between back-to-back rounds of chemotherapy. After she became sick, the simplest of things made me so proud.
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Writing had and hadn’t always been a natural process for me. As a child, I kept a journal which was reinforced by my father who at the start of summer would sit my sister and I down on the front porch after dinner, and supply us each with a composition notebook and pen. He’d instruct us to write about our day. “But Daaaaad, we don’t know what to write!” we protested. Eventually, it stuck.
I carried the habit into adulthood. Written words on a page released certain emotions I harbored and contained them to print. Writing about my broken heart, my sometimes-tumultuous relationship with others, past traumas that resurfaced in my twenties, and all my wants and desires, helped me wander through life less confused and more confident. When I’d shut the journal, I felt lighter in my body.
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Today, there has been research offering scientific evidence proving the positive effects writing has on a person who has endured a painful event. Science backs that writing about trauma is healing.
The way it heals us is demonstrated in physiological expressions such as improving immune function and decreasing blood pressure.
Since June died three years ago, it felt strange when people asked me, “When will you stop writing about June?” Initially, I was insulted by the question, but as insult faded, I became curious. People wanted to know when I’d stop writing about June, but why? What was their perception? At the same time, I knew I wouldn’t stop writing, but I couldn’t pinpoint why I was so compelled to continue to do so other than because by writing, I kept June present in my daily life.
To be honest, I never began writing about June because I thought it would heal me. It was only to remember her, but in the last two-and-a-half years, it has evolved into something greater. Through writing, I have started to make sense and gain clarity of a nonsensical situation. On the days that I’d wake up and ask, “Is this really my life?” a year or two or even three after June died, I’d put it on the page. I’d channel my hurt, pain, disbelief, and despair into a sentence. One that was reflected at me and didn’t look as monstrous as it felt inside of my body.
Through others curiosity, in turn, I became curious, and started to see how writing was healing me.
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One major evolution I had as a result of writing was that I started to see that my story continued. It didn’t stop with June’s death. For the last three years, there has been nothing more inspiring for me than knowing I can carry June into each day through my written words. Which in turn, helps me to wake up every day and still choose life.
What’s more is that I have learned through writing that I can create whatever reality I want. Sometimes, it’s bitter and awful, but other times it can actually be fun.
I can suffer.
I can bemoan my past life.
I can fall victim to the circumstances, and I do.
I can also live, love, and dream. I lost my daughter, but writing about her has made it very clear that hopelessness related to her death does not have to define the rest of my life. Death isn’t my only story, nor was it June’s.
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Through my writing, I’ve reflected more on why people ask me when I’ll stop writing about June, and the answer has become clearer. At the root, they thought I was continuing to do myself a disservice. That I was stuck in my grief and not moving forward with my life. While that seems to make sense, that’s never how I’ve felt.
After doing research, I learned there is evidence supporting my feelings and lived experience. By continuing to process the horrific events of my past through writing, I can move more calmly into the future.
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At times, I’ve read some of my essays to friends who are curious to listen. We have cried together. Hearing my own voice, process the words aloud reminds me that I once thought I’d die after June did. That this is really my life, but by reflecting on past writing no matter how horrible the circumstance was, I am reminded of how far I have come.
Reading your work aloud and processing it with others has been proven to enhance the healing effects of writing.
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I’ll never forget the first grief retreat my family and I ever attended after June died. On the first evening, we were told that after dinner, we would gather in a circle and share our stories about our lost children. Upon hearing this, I felt a hot flash of energy run through my body. It was a mix of fear and excitement. I didn’t know it then, but the first stage of my grief was storytelling, and this was my first experience of it being given a platform.
After June’s passing, I sat with anyone who visited and would listen to me as I recounted June’s life in the most minuscule of detail. Usually, I wasn’t showered, still in my pajamas, sitting on the stained living room couch where we had spent June’s final days together. The person visiting was a friend or family member and from the moment they’d arrived, I couldn’t wait for them to sit down, so I could begin telling stories of June.
When I’d finished discussing what I needed to get out, I’d ask the person sitting across from me if my stories aligned with what they remembered about her. This question usually sparked another memory within them and then, I’d sit listening to a story about June that I’d never heard before.
My heart would break over and over, but with time and returning to the blank page, it started to piece itself back together.
Storytelling was my first stage of grief. Like all stages of grief, they are extremely personal and typically do not fall in any order. Storytelling, certainly isn’t listed one of them, but for me, it is and always was. Just like the little blonde haired girl sitting in an oversized tweed chair on the front porch in the light of the setting summer sun, handed my first composition notebook, the story continues to reveal itself to me.
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At the retreat, on the way downstairs from our room to our first “sharing” meeting, my husband looked at me, squeezed my hand, and said, “Do you want me to share? You don’t want to go into too much detail, Taryn, everyone has a story here.”
I had lost June. Not temporarily, but forever, a notion I was still grappling with. It had only been four months since her passing. She was still my daughter, but I didn’t have her anymore. I’d never see her again. I had nothing left, but when I learned that we would share her with others, I realized I still had her story.
Not everything was lost.
That was when I knew I’d always share because June was gone, but her story was mine to tell the world. Through me, June would live on.
I complied with my husband’s wishes and agreed it was a better idea he share. But, when the moment came for either me or him to speak as we sat in the circle of parents, so vulnerably on metal folding chairs inside of a vast gymnasium, wringing wet tissues in our palms, it was without hesitation that I began. I shared what I needed until my husband stepped in.
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Like writing, storytelling is a release. People often begin writing without knowing what they are going to write, which is true for me. Usually, when I begin, I have a general feeling associated with a topic or thought that I want to leave on the page, but that’s all.
Then, I try to find words to describe those feelings in hopes creating a story. For me to write is to express my pain in a way that overcomes others and takes them to a place they’ve never traveled, so they have a bit more compassion when they finish. My favorite, is taking someone to a place they know intimately, to a feeling they also cannot let go, but perhaps haven’t been able to acknowledged or define.
The first step in recovery is acknowledging you have a problem. The same is true for healing. The first step to healing is acknowledging what is getting in the way of your healing. Writing has the ability to tap into your unconsciousness, which is where writing originates for me. It brings confusion to the surface and defines it. In that way, I am able to see what is preventing me from living.
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References
J., C. K. (2002, Summer). Healing Through the Written Word. Retrieved from NIH National Library of Medicine: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6220635/#:~:text=Although%20the%20simple%20exercise%20of,overall%20healing%20effects%20of%20writing.
Oliver Glass, M. D. (2018, September 28). Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice. Retrieved from Elsevier: https://cssh.northeastern.edu/pandemic-teaching-initiative/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2020/10/GlassetalTraumaResilience.pdf
