Journal writing & grief

March 26, 2015

Because our writing…is a concrete object, it becomes a memorial and a testimony to the resolution of the mourning process…[it] permits us to pass from numbness to feeling, from denial to acceptance, from conflict and chaos to order and resolution, from rage and loss to profound growth, from grief to joy[1]."

(Louise DeSalvo, Writing as a Way of Healing)

I have always kept a journal, but when my Mom passed away a year ago I couldn’t write. Quite frankly I didn’t want to do anything that would remind me of my sadness and pain. When I finally attempted to put pen to paper none of it came anywhere close to expressing how I felt about Mom. The loss seemed indescribable. I felt like author Isabel Allende when her daughter Paula fell into a coma (and later died) and she said she couldn’t write because something inside had broken. She felt she’d never write again.[2]