The Casebook of Elisha Grey IV is a challenge for me, which I knew when I was going into it because the story came to me months ago, as I completed Casebook III. Even though I had sketched the story, now I am actually creating the rough draft of the closing story, and the emotions are as raw as when I first noted down the events.
It touches on my own personal experience of grief after learning of the death of someone I had loved deeply.
It's a sad irony that I was working on this story over the weekend when the hate crime that the Orlando Massacre actually is happened. That same weekend, actors, writers, directors, dancers -- triple threats to the rafters -- were rehearsing for the Tony Awards.
Many showed, either in actions or words, that they were grieving for the collective loss.
Why is grief so difficult in modern American culture? Because, so often, its acknowledgment is cursory at best, nonexistent at worst, and giving room for its expression is denied.
Paul Unschuld, Ph.D., in his book "Medicine in China: A History of Ideas" points out a key tipping point: the desecration of graves during the Warring States period, before the Emperor Qin undertook his bloody war to unite the various states. The desecration of graves was the final blow in a culture that believed those who have died influence our lives. It was a way to make their lives, and any influence they may have, meaningless.
By exploring the emotion of grief, which in Chinese Medicine is considered one of the most damaging long term because of what it can do to the physical body, in my own writing I am finding a rich expression of what it is to love, to lose a loved one to death, and what it means for others through their caring friendship to support someone who is in the initial stages of grief. To me, this creative act is a healing act, not only for me, but for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one. It also honors the memory of the one who, in death, has moved beyond this world to another one, leaving me among others to remember him.
I say initial stages of grief for a reason: grief lasts far longer than our culture cares to explore. It's not the days preceding the funeral, the funeral, and then move on. Grief doesn't work that way.
For those of us who are creative people, we know this on an emotional and intuitive level. When we use our craft to express our grief, we are helping those who have moved on to continue their journey by sending our energy to them so that they know they were of value, we are also helping those who remain behind who are left with the task of redefining themselves without the one they have lost being present in ordinary time in their daily life. It doesn't matter which genre is your choice for your creation, for if you are writing about life, you will at some point need to broach the subject of death, and how it impacts the living.
Thank you Lin-Manuel Miranda for your heartfelt couplet. This is the kind of act that preserves our civilization by giving testimony to collective loss and our human desire to care for those who experience the loss in the most profound and personal way.
What have I been listening to while writing the last story in Casebook IV, where a character suddenly dies? The soundtrack to "Legend" by Tangerine Dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfOWehvvuo0
image: Woman with Crow by Rochelle Redfield
It touches on my own personal experience of grief after learning of the death of someone I had loved deeply.
It's a sad irony that I was working on this story over the weekend when the hate crime that the Orlando Massacre actually is happened. That same weekend, actors, writers, directors, dancers -- triple threats to the rafters -- were rehearsing for the Tony Awards.
Many showed, either in actions or words, that they were grieving for the collective loss.
Why is grief so difficult in modern American culture? Because, so often, its acknowledgment is cursory at best, nonexistent at worst, and giving room for its expression is denied.
Paul Unschuld, Ph.D., in his book "Medicine in China: A History of Ideas" points out a key tipping point: the desecration of graves during the Warring States period, before the Emperor Qin undertook his bloody war to unite the various states. The desecration of graves was the final blow in a culture that believed those who have died influence our lives. It was a way to make their lives, and any influence they may have, meaningless.
By exploring the emotion of grief, which in Chinese Medicine is considered one of the most damaging long term because of what it can do to the physical body, in my own writing I am finding a rich expression of what it is to love, to lose a loved one to death, and what it means for others through their caring friendship to support someone who is in the initial stages of grief. To me, this creative act is a healing act, not only for me, but for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one. It also honors the memory of the one who, in death, has moved beyond this world to another one, leaving me among others to remember him.
I say initial stages of grief for a reason: grief lasts far longer than our culture cares to explore. It's not the days preceding the funeral, the funeral, and then move on. Grief doesn't work that way.
For those of us who are creative people, we know this on an emotional and intuitive level. When we use our craft to express our grief, we are helping those who have moved on to continue their journey by sending our energy to them so that they know they were of value, we are also helping those who remain behind who are left with the task of redefining themselves without the one they have lost being present in ordinary time in their daily life. It doesn't matter which genre is your choice for your creation, for if you are writing about life, you will at some point need to broach the subject of death, and how it impacts the living.
Thank you Lin-Manuel Miranda for your heartfelt couplet. This is the kind of act that preserves our civilization by giving testimony to collective loss and our human desire to care for those who experience the loss in the most profound and personal way.
What have I been listening to while writing the last story in Casebook IV, where a character suddenly dies? The soundtrack to "Legend" by Tangerine Dream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfOWehvvuo0
image: Woman with Crow by Rochelle Redfield