The Artists’
Grief Deck

My dad passed away a year before Covid hit and what made that time of isolation even harder was that I was also going through a really tough time dealing with his passing. As I was trying to get motiv...

Where do you feel most at home? Try to remember the feeling of falling asleep in unguarded comfort, in complete connection with your surroundings. Losing someone can make you lose touch with yourself,...

Deep down, our human animal knows how to grieve. Trust yourself. Grief is a personal process, and your grief is as unique as you are. No one has the right to tell you how to walk your grief journey....

Time is one thing we can never, ever get back. Having a chronic illness caused me to lose the experience of having a normal life by any stretch of the imagination from 2012-2016 and our current pandem...

Hold a hand, Hold the hand of your lost one, your beloved, the hand of the being who haunts you. And when you become accustomed to the deep presence of the absence hold any hand, your lover’s hand,...

When I gather the fragments together, nothing makes sense. Everything is scattered and haphazard. But something may catch my eye, something accidental and unexpected. A color combination, a shape I ha...

Let it rain....

Connect with an ancestor, either by genealogy or culture or choice. It may help to imagine or conjure their image, or perhaps you may just feel their warmth or light. What might you thank them for? Wh...

I grieve not only for the losses of the present but also for what could have been. If I stay too long in my head imagining the things I won't ever have, I can lose myself in a spiral downward. When I...

Read your favorite stories aloud and believe with all of your heart your loved one is listening closely to every page....

Find an old picture of a memory with a person that has died. Use any materials you have (pencil, paints, clay, etc) to recreate this moment with this person. Revisit this memory by sitting still and l...

Interplaying with the grief. Put on a piece of music (3-5 min long instrumental works great) and begin to move. Taking care of your body and listening - Does it need to move gently with a swaying moti...

Allow yourself space to feel many, sometimes seemingly conflicting, things at once. We rarely feel only one emotion at a time. Sadness, fear, anger, hope, relief, joy… these feelings can all co-exis...

No estas exagerando, es algo que te duele y esta bien que necesites tiempo para sanar. ¡Tómate tu tiempo, pero no demores; hay mucho por hacer! You are not exaggerating, it is something that hurts...

Common misconceptions of grief assert that the grief journey is universal, linear, and predictable. However, grief is not a monolithic experience; instead, grief is unique to the individual. While oth...

In grief, time feels like the enemy. Making music helped me find a better relationship with time when feeling difficult emotions. Even if you have not played in a long time, there is no bad time to ge...

Often when we go through a major change in our lives, we unknowingly mourn the loss of that version of ourselves. This death of a self can also occur through good change, and we get confused about why...

Reach back right now. Plant both feet on the Earth and remember the places where you have gathered, the waters which you have swum across, the flowers that you have planted together. What secrets did...

I didn’t know I thought about my mom everyday until I had to wake up and remind myself that she was dead. Now, I wake up and remind myself she lived. Gather on a tray: Pen, paper, candle, lighter, a...