The Artists’
Grief Deck

This simple activity may help ease your transition. • Draw a portrait of your beloved departed • Rescue their handkerchief (or apron, or other cloth of theirs) • Make a Grief Doll and keep it un...

After my mother died, I had the urge to plant something, to watch something grow. It felt good to sink my hands into the earth, feel the soil sift through my fingers. It felt tangible. Plant a tree, a...

Create and collaborate. Use an item belonging to your loved one to create something new. T-shirts may become a quilt or a pillow. Photos and letters may become a collage. You might listen to their fav...

Write your cheer. Design your moves. Try it out!...

Our world has been in disarray from COVID-19 since March. If you’re like me and have a paper calendar, the following months look strange, empty, and not even representative of our own lives. Spend t...

If a quality or idea someone’s brought to our lives lives on is us, a part of that someone survives, and in remembering what we’ve learned from them, we re-member ourselves: learn how and who to b...

Find something that you think your loved one would have loved and love it for them. It doesn’t have to be anything special or perfect. Maybe it is a simple object in your home, outside in nature, or...

You can’t bring back the dead, but you can learn their wisdom, passed down from generation to generation. What did you learn from your loved one? What were the gifts that you received? How might you...

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...

Worries seem to swirl around us sometimes. Some clang loudly, some whisper. Take a few deep breaths and call up one of your worries or concerns. Hold it for a moment in your imagination, then let it l...

In winter, breathe in the cold, and let the rain shower and cleanse your soul. In summer, bathe in the warmth, and let the light pool and cleanse your soul. That is nature: to be alone, but no...

What do we do simply for beauty or love or joy? What do we do to enrich others? We spend so much of our lives shuttling ourselves from home to work and back again, sometimes losing sight of our humani...

The process of grieving is a natural one. Whenever I feel out of control of my life and my circumstances, I remember that there’s entire natural world out there that keeps moving without me. To remi...

Think of something that you want to become part of you. It could be a loved one’s name, a healing word, a phrase. Say the words out loud. Let yourself fully feel them, and then write them down again...

Whenever I am grieving over the loss of my loved ones, I talk to them in my head about whatever it is I’m going through, knowing that I won’t be able to hear their answer but also believing that t...

Pretend a newspaper reporter is interviewing you to learn about grief and loss and your job is to teach them. What would you want them to know about what it’s like to be you since your loved one die...

Find a space you feel the most comfort in, whether it’s alone or with a loved one. Lie down on your back, close your eyes, and slowly breathe in and out, four times each. Focus on memory. Take yours...

We’re taught at a young age in school that form is in flux. Water can change its physical state from solid to liquid to gas a million times and never lose any part of itself. We forget this fact in...

My great grandmother was one of the most special, wonderful people in my life. She would fly from New Zealand to Australia every year for my birthday, and she would stay in my room, telling me countle...