Are you ever really sad? I’m sure you are. We all have our moments of grief for a multitude of reasons: loss of a loved one or a loved pet, break-up with a friend or someone with whom you thought you could spend the rest of your life, loss of a home (either a building or a country), and the list goes on. For me, the first time I felt grief with great intensity was when my grandmother died in 1995 at the noble age of 93. She was my best friend; we shared a special bond. Needless to say, I was devastated. I took my pain and started to write, taking the stories she had once avidly shared with us all and bringing them to life, beginning with her childhood and ending with her last few breaths:

“Somewhere a clock ticked. Or did it beep? The tone was erratic, now broken, now continuous. “Thou art my rod and staff…” A man’s voice reached me from afar. “She is ninety-three years old, after all,” the voice said. I had a big party for my ninetieth birthday. All of the family was there and the great-grandchildren put on a concert. The Prime Minister even sent me a letter of congratulations. It was a nice letter, even though I never liked the Prime Minister! The tone became a long continuous beep. I felt no pain, but I did feel. Therefore I was still alive. “Not much point.” The voice faded. “A time to every purpose…” “Let her go.” A whisper…The beep droned, withered, and faded… “Ashes to ashes…” “The Resurrection and the Life…” “Inform the family,” the voice said… “Dust to Dust…” I no longer felt anything. Therefore I was no more… “A time to die…””

She was a storyteller during her life, so in death, I honored her by allowing her to tell the story. I wrote “Personal Notes” (Moose Enterprise: 2000) in first person narrative. And I sobbed through the entire process of writing Gran’s story. When complete, I still ached at the loss, but I did feel refreshed. Gran has appeared in a number of my stories: “The Four Seasons” series and “Queen Mary’s Daughter” (Clean Reads: 2018). She used to jokingly claim that we’d soon forget her once she died. I’ve proved her wrong and enjoy the challenge of finding a suitable role for her in my stories.

Putting grief into your stories is one thing. For me, it added another dimension to my character development. Yes, grief does define characters. Writing about grief in the third person, as a self-help article, is another way to share the sorrow. I haven’t done the self-help article; though, arguably, my story, “The Day My Mother Died” (Signs of Life Anthology: 2019):

“The day my mother died, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. When I received that early morning call from Dad, I knew before I picked up the phone. I felt the knife slowly twist in my gut as I listened to the pain in his voice. I wanted to cry. My mother had suffered so much: the cancer robbing her, not just her life, but also her dignity, her right to die with dignity. In the end, sadly, she was a vegetable. It all happened quickly, too soon. The day my mother died, my heart was breaking; but I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. The day my mother died, my son started his first round of chemo treatments. Cancer had a grip on my family and it would be a long journey before tears were allowed.”

Perhaps what I wrote in my cover letter best describes who we are in the face of grief: “Who are we, that we sometimes do not and cannot feel grief? For many reasons, grief eludes us, but only temporarily. When my mother was dying of cancer, I was in shock, but I couldn’t cry when she died. Why? Because my son was also fighting his own battle with cancer, a battle he came close to losing. It took a long time, and more deaths before I could cry. And then the floodgates let loose.”

Grief is a vital part of who we are. We all have to deal with it at some time or another. For me, coping with grief means writing about it, either in the form of articles/memoirs or weaving it into my works of fiction.