Memories through the Lens of Grief
Memories Through the Lens of Grief
40”x30” Original Mixed Media on Gallery Wrapped Canvas
Grief, to me, has an amorphous quality like fog. It is formless and shapeless, but it has density to it that makes it feel cumbersome to carry. Sometimes you’ll be moving through grief without even noticing it until you're in the thick of it, surrounded on all sides, and uncertain of where you are or how you got there.
I created this painting in late October, early November of 2020 after my father passed away. My father was an alcoholic and was mostly absent from my life. The relationship we did have was strained, but it improved when I started seeing a therapist and came to accept the person he was and our relationship for what it was.
Early into the 2020 year my father was put on hospice care for advanced COPD and Emphysema from years and years of smoking. It was around this same time, in a session with my therapist, that I realized I was full of so much grief that I had never acknowledged around my father, the absence of my father, and the relationship we never had. At the time, my belief was that grief was reserved for death and loss, but I now understand that this is not the case.
Before he passed away, I grieved the father I didn’t have and the father I wished I could have had. Grieving my father’s absence felt like moving through the thick fog of a rainy fall morning that is dense and lingers late into the early afternoon before the sun can burn it off. It felt like I was moving through it for weeks, sometimes unsure if I was on solid ground or floating in water, and everytime the shadows of life would start to form around me and I would think that I was getting oriented in the world, the shapes would change and I'd find myself adrift again.
But just like with actual fog, time, like the sun, slowly melts it away.
After my father passed away in October of 2020, the grief shifted and changed, changing with it the landscape with which I had previously become familiar. The grief of his death felt more like the fog that rolls in and pools up atop a river in the evenings and then dissipates in the morning. It felt more temporary, more weatherable. It still occasionally rolls in at certain moments of remembering, but it’s much softer and doesn’t linger quite so long. In truth, it has been much easier to grieve his death than it was to grieve his absence.
The process of grieving the father I didn’t have actually helped me come into a greater place of acceptance for who he was and the relationship we did have. It was because of this I was able to spend some of his last moments with him without expectation or need and that I was able to reconnect with the few fond memories we did share from our history before he passed away.
It was when I was painting this piece, and reflecting on our history and those few fond memories that I realized that there is something about grief that softens the sharp edges of painful memories and helps us come into a deeper relationship with peace.
Collectors Club Members will get exclusive access to this original painting on Friday, November the 19th. The painting will then become publicly available on November 20th. To make sure you don’t miss out on collecting your ornament, join the Collectors Club here!