Hero Sandwich

Name: Jessica*

Age: 43

Tell me about the person who died:

My father died a little over 10 years ago. He killed himself. He had dealt with depression my entire life, so in some ways, this was not a complete surprise, but of course, it was incredibly shocking and traumatic at the same time. 

When I was young, I was Daddy's little girl. He adored me and the feeling was mutual. My mother was the disciplinarian and my dad was all about fun. We went everywhere together. He'd patiently put up with my never-ending questions; he gave me candy and food that my mother did not allow. We hit golf balls at the driving range and went to car shows. Even going with him on weekend errands was fun. He would embarrass me with dorky “dad” jokes and, like me, he could be the class clown. I saw that whenever we went to a restaurant and he made the waitresses laugh. He was a good, but troubled person.

When adolescence hit, I no longer wanted to hang out with him and didn't feel comfortable talking to him, as all these things were happening to me, both physically and emotionally. Then I got to high school and I separated from him further. I think at least unconsciously, I felt like I didn't know how to relate to him now that I was no longer a little girl, so most of my interactions with him were brief and superficial.

Our relationship was also marred by his relationship with my mother, which was not good. I would say my mother was emotionally abusive to him. And he let her be that way—it takes two. I spent most of my adult life being angry at him for putting up with my mother. Our relationship suffered because of that, and I never returned to being close to him the way I was when I was a child.

Tell me about an object that reminds you of the person who died and why?

So many things remind me of him, but food probably stands out the most–peanut M&Ms, seltzer, bagels with tuna, sturgeon, and caviar cream cheese, which he would buy on special occasions, to name a few. Also, on occasion, he would eat an absurdly huge, unhealthy and delicious hero that he would get from the neighborhood deli, piled with turkey, roast beef, tongue, Russian dressing, and coleslaw. He would often give me some of it and it was one of our small ways of bonding. We both loved to eat and to indulge in "bad stuff,” especially since my mom was so concerned with what I should and shouldn't eat.

What was your experience of grief like after your loss? How did it change over time?

It was pure hell, initially. The worst experience I’ve ever had, without a doubt (as my sister once said, we lived rather charmed lives until my dad died). It was shocking and painful and excruciating and numbing and terrifying. I had never lost anyone very close to me before, with the exception of one grandmother who died when I was 13. I had never experienced true grief. 

My mother called me and told me what had happened. For the next two hours I went back and forth between shock and hysteria, even apologizing to her because I thought it was my fault. I was not thinking clearly, and I ran around my room trying to figure out what to pack to go back home. I packed a bunch of workout socks. I didn't pack any funeral-appropriate clothing.

I was going to take the train home but my roommate at the time convinced me that I should really take a cab. After a thirty minute ride, I gave the cab driver $100, got out and crossed the street to my childhood home. I started walking across my lawn when two cops approached me and asked if I was Alison*, my sister. “No,” I told them. “I’m Jessica.” I felt myself walking backwards. Each cop took an arm and guided me forward into my house where I began yelling for my mother as I walked down the hall. I was watching myself from above, as if I was in a movie. I reached the eat-in kitchen and at the table sat my mom, my father's best friend, his wife, and my father's brother and his wife. They all looked like hell.

My sister and her family were not able to come until the following day, and I remember being scared to be alone in the house with my mother. I’m not sure why I felt that way. Maybe I felt like I had to take care of her? I just couldn’t wait for my sister to be there with me. It was too much to handle on my own.

The first couple of weeks were full of terror (was this a dream? how can this be happening?), shock, guilt, tears, pain, and more guilt. Not just emotional pain, but physical pain in my chest, which I carried with me on and off for many years after. It's weird what your body does. My mom who "felt fine" ended up getting shingles, which is often caused by extreme stress.

My grief is not linear. The worst was not on day one and the easiest is not today. It ebbs and flows. Things are pretty stable now, but in the beginning, it almost felt like I was going insane. I could be completely fine one minute and breaking down the next, yearning for this excruciating pain to subside. I remember talking to someone whose sister had committed suicide, asking him if the pain was ever going to go away. It felt permanent and eternal, like I would never be normal again.

Although I was in therapy at the time of my dad’s death, I don't think I've ever truly dealt with my grief, even to this day. I've talked a lot about it, but it still feels almost imaginary. It sometimes feels like nothing happened because I'm so filled with guilt that I can't miss him. I also don't miss him because we weren't close for so many years, so I was used to not having him in my life, as horrible as that sounds. Most of the time, all I feel is guilt or nothingness. In many ways, he feels like a ghost.  

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape you've been passing through, what would it look like and feel like at different points in your journey?

At first it felt like a cave–dark and deep with lots of sharp stalactites hanging down. Black, deep reds, and fiery oranges. When I was not in hell, it would feel pretty normal, like a calm lake on a partly sunny day, with something bubbling beneath the surface. It reminds me of an EKG, where the lines go up and down, up and down, but then they even out a bit more. It's like having a massive heart attack, and then it calms down, and then maybe you have some heart palpitations along the way and it calms down again. At the end of the EKG line, the up and down is more regular like a normal heartbeat and hardly anything goes too high or too low.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

I was surprised at just how much I loved my dad. I remember sitting in therapy and crying so intensely into a pillow, trying to muffle the guttural screams coming out of me. I don't think I realized the depths of it when he was alive because my feelings were always clouded with anger and discomfort. It’s really hard for me to get out of my anger and be more accepting of things sometimes. I wish I had been able to express that love for him while he was alive.

How did people support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

My close friends were incredible. They listened and sympathized and were there for me in ways that astound me now. One of my closest friends called me every single day for three months after my dad died. I don't talk much about my dad now for the most part, but I know I can talk to them if I need to.

I cannot speak to my family about it. I have tons of anger towards my mom as I sometimes modeled my behavior towards him after hers, which burns me up inside now. She won't really admit to the role she played in his death or in their relationship, which she still insists was not so bad. Her general attitude towards anything is pretending everything is fine. It’s very difficult for her to accept feelings of sadness or regret or pain.

I also cannot speak to my sister about it, for the most part. My dad killed himself on my nephew's birthday. My nephew was 5 at the time. It wasn’t intentional, it was just a day when my mom was going to be out of the house for a few hours and he saw an opportunity. My dad loved my nephew very much. But my sister has always been very focused on making that day about her son and protecting him from anything negative. She helped me through the funeral, and I think we were there for each other in the beginning, trying to process all of this. But on anniversaries, we don’t discuss it. I’m sure everyone is having their own experience of it, but sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who thinks about him.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief?

No. I generally don’t get into this kind of thing. I have visited my dad’s gravesite once or twice, but even that seems strange. He is not in the ground any more than he is standing right next to me, so I do not feel any different or closer to him at the cemetery and I’d prefer not to be there.

How did your loss and your grief change you?

I definitely felt like my dad’s death created a divide in my life. There was life before he died and life after he died.

For the first seven years or so after his death, I was very agitated in the weeks leading up to the anniversary. I felt sensitive and depressed and anxious. I did things in those weeks that I would not normally do. I called friends out on things in inappropriate ways. I just was not myself. 

I think as time has gone on, things have returned somewhat to normal. I’m not the same person of course–I’ve experienced a significant loss and something very traumatic and that will never change. I feel horrible saying this, but there are many days and weeks where I don’t think about my dad. 

Is there anything else you want to share?

When someone takes their own life, everyone is left with so much anger: at the person who did it, at family members, at oneself. There is a lot to untangle. And there is finger-pointing and so much “what if.” When I think about why this happened, it is like peeling an onion—things from his childhood contributed to his death as much as things from the week he died.  

And then there is the taboo surrounding suicide. People talk about suicide in hushed tones. In the beginning, my mother straight-out lied to a number of people about how my father died. People who went to his funeral had no idea he killed himself. A few years after his death, I told my mother I was getting back in touch with a childhood friend via Facebook and she threatened me over saying anything about my father. I think the taboo stems from a few things—from not understanding how depression works, from the guilt that people feel about the person who died, and from the idea, which I disagree with, that the person who did this must be selfish.

I have suffered from depression since I was about 13 years old. I have “attempted suicide” (they were really cries for help rather than legitimate attempts). I was depressed at the time my father killed himself, which was partly why I had barely been in touch with him during the months before his death. I understand what depression can do to you and where it can bring you. I have been at the edge before. I do not wish it upon anyone. Sadly, though my father and I both dealt with depression, we never discussed it.

*Name has been changed.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. 

Bicycle

Name: Leyla Nickerson

Age: 58

Tell me about the person who died:

Devon is my son, but more importantly he was my teacher. He was a beautiful burst of energy that flashed through 26 years. He was an adventurer, cyclist, farmer, singer/songwriter, poet, horseman, lover of life. It is impossible to illustrate the essence of Devon in just a few words. He moved through life with an urgency to experience as many different kinds of things and people as possible, but despite the speed at which he moved, he always took the time to make genuine connections and create lasting friendships. This was what gave his life true meaning and would be his most cherished accomplishment. 

The lessons I have learned from Devon's life are profound. He understood that we are given a life to live fully, not to waste. He lived with the realization that control is an illusion and that we need to make every day count by following our passions and dreams and staying true to ourselves.

He accidentally fell from a building on May 2, 2010–the darkest day of my life. Sharing a life with Devon has been my greatest joy and my deepest sorrow but the love we share is eternal.

What has your experience of grief been like since your loss? How did it change over time?

The loss of my son has been the most devastating experience of my life. I previously experienced many losses—both my parents, my sister and brother—but nothing could have prepared me for the depth of sorrow and suffering of losing my child. Physically I felt as if someone had cut out my heart with a very dull knife. Many times I literally could not breathe. I felt shattered into thousands of pieces and had no thoughts of putting them back together. I truly wished only to die and be with my son; I could think of nothing else. Every day was filled with visions of him and each moment was more painful than the last.

At some point, after several weeks or months maybe, I came to realize that I needed to make a decision about whether I wanted to live or die. It came to me that by giving up I would be dishonoring my son and everything he believed in. About a year after his death, I met other mothers who had lost children. By meeting these women who knew the depth of my grief but were actually living, I started to see some hope that perhaps I could find a path to a new life. The courage and compassion of these women became my lifeline. Today, six years after losing my son, I host and facilitate grief groups with another mom, and we continually support mothers by companioning them through their journey of grief. I have also become a yoga instructor and conduct workshops for healing grief. This has been my path to my own healing. Devon's life and death have taught me to cherish and live my life fully, even though my heart aches every single day for my son.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like at different points since your loss?

It felt like I was plunged into a dark, bottomless pool of cold water. Dark blue or black. Tidal waves crashing over my head and feeling myself being pulled down, down, down. The landscape would be rubble—as if a bomb had exploded and everything was dead—but then, the sun starts to creep up over the horizon and I see one small seedling coming up out of the devastation. Each day something new might sprout and I start to see more green, and then the day comes when I notice that the sky isn't black anymore, it’s a beautiful blue. The bees are singing and buzzing, flying from one yellow sunflower to the next.

Tell me about an object that that reminds you of the person who died, and why?

Devon cared nothing for material items except for his beloved bicycles. He loved cycling and rode his bike across the country with his two friends. I have many pictures of him on different bikes. He also really wanted to be a hobo and make his way across country by jumping trains—this is something he never got to.

How have the people in your life supported you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

The support of other mothers who have lost a child has been the most powerful support I have received. I am also blessed to have the most wonderful man in my life—my husband, Jeff. We came together about a year before I lost Devon. Even though we were both in our fifties, this was the first time either of us had experienced true love. He supported me with loving kindness and compassion; we had help from a counselor too. I don't think I would have made it without him.

In spite of this support, at times I have felt a great deal of isolation. We live in a society that has no understanding of how to handle grief or offer support, especially when you lose a child. No one wants to even imagine that it could happen to them, so some people avoided me. I was pretty angry about it at first, but have come to understand that they just didn't know what to do. Like talking about my son—I love to talk about him! It's so strange that some people think it will make me more sad. Do they really think that I don't have him on my mind every day—just like they do when their children are alive? I have become more tolerant of people's behavior but sometimes it really does hurt when family members or close friends forget his "angel date" or other significant times.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice?

Devon's brother, Nathan, tried his best to support me but it was very difficult for me to understand why he was grieving so differently. His perspective was, "I cannot let my emotions overtake me; I have to put it in a box and stuff it under the bed.” Over time I came to realize that he has suffered deeply too, but his path was different. He seemed able to let only a little grief in at a time; he needed to keep his equilibrium because he had a family with small children to support. We do talk about Devon more now after six years. I want his children to know who Devon was. I want to keep his memory alive and I think that Nathan is on board with that now.

Has anything surprised you about your experience with grief? 

I am surprised that I have been able to survive this devastation. I remember in the past when someone lost a child I used to think: that would be it, I couldn't live through that. I guess I am surprised about the courage that I have been able to find in myself. I knew that Devon would be really pissed off at me if I gave up.

Was there anything about your cultural or religious background that affected the grieving process for you?

I come from a New England, Anglo-Saxon background where, as my mother used to put it, "We don't wear our heart on our coat sleeve." Personally, I think I have evolved from that upbringing and I do not feel uncomfortable expressing my grief. Religiously, I have a Buddhist practice which helped me cope with my grief in a big way. While my religion did not exactly allow me to make sense of this tragedy, it did give me the understanding that suffering is part of living and I do not have to let it defeat me.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief?

I have an altar with pictures of my son and other family members who have passed away. I have opened my mind and heart to the possibility of signs from my son and have experienced many moments of knowing he is always with me. My Buddhist practice, which includes chanting, has been an integral part of my healing. Each year on the anniversary of Devon's death, my family gathers at the place where his ashes were put into the water and we walk and share stories of Devon. In the beginning, I walked almost every day at the beach where his ashes are. Also, my friend and I host a candle-lighting ceremony each December; it is a lovely way to remember and commemorate our children. I believe rituals are a very important part of remembering and honoring the people we lose.

How has your loss and your experience of grief changed you?

My grief experience has changed me profoundly. I no longer fear the future. I try my best to appreciate every aspect of my life, whether positive or negative, and realize that life, although extremely challenging, is also very beautiful. My son had a tattoo on his wrist, which I now have on my own: "Life is life.” He learned this from a homeless man many years ago. To me this simply means that life is not something we can control and that as long as we are alive, we will experience both joy and suffering. Accepting both is the best way to live.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. 

Jane Eyre

Name: Peter B.

Age: 60

Tell me about the person who died: 

I'm an artist who lives and paints in Wales. My beloved wife Donna died of pancreatic cancer last year on the morning of our silver wedding anniversary, the 8th of September, 2015. She was fifty-one years old. We were inseparable.

What has your experience of grief been like since your loss? 

I am exhausted. All of the time. I weep every day. It feels like a palpable barrier has been erected around me. Intangible, invisible and insurmountable. Life has become muffled. Time passes infinitely slowly. Everything has become excruciatingly difficult to negotiate.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like? 

A bottomless pit of slate grey. Not black. There is light but filtered through layers of cloth of variable thickness.

Tell me about an object that I can photograph that reminds you of the person who died, and why?

A book. Jane Eyre. My wife loved to read.

How did the people in your life support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

My friends were wonderful. They still are. They seem to instinctively know when I need an arm around my shoulder and when to back off and give me space. I am reluctant to lean on them overly much. I don't wish to intrude on their lives. I don't wish to inflict my grief upon them.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice?

My wife and I lived a solitary life together. All we needed was one another. We saw others very infrequently. Subsequently I grieve alone. I can't speak for our friends. They keep their feelings shielded from me.

Did anything surprise you about your experience with grief?

The sheer force of it. I lost both my parents a few years ago. My wife and I cared for them both in their last years. We loved them dearly but although losing them was terrible, it was nothing compared to losing my wife. Her loss has devastated me.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning? 

There has been no discernible difference. I only leave my home infrequently now. I break down unpredictably so I keep myself sequestered.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief?

My life meanders from one day to the next. Only my painting gives form and structure to it. I created a piece in memory of my cariad* called "Rain Dancer" in those initial months after I lost her. Making it helped me enormously, though in a way everything I made prior and everything I make subsequent to her loss was and is for her, despite much of my work being commission-based. A little of her is in everything I make.

How did your loss and your experience of grief change you?

It's too early to say. I am still too raw, too confused to analyze or make any sense of how I am or will be.

*love, in Welsh

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story. 

Scallops with Arugula and Peas

Name: Catherine Mellinger

Age: 36

Tell me about the person who died: 

I met Vick when I was 28, after starting a certificate program in Expressive Arts Therapy in Toronto. She was one of my classmates. The program was a three year program and over the first two years, Vick and I began forming a friendship. Vick was a flame. She has this incredible curly red hair, a deep voice, intense eyes. She was honest, exceptionally intelligent, utterly kind and caring. I remember first bonding with her over California–she was from there, and my sister was living there, so I would go at least once a year to visit. I would randomly run into her on the streetcar and we'd talk about writing and what the process of making art was like for us. It was a slow build of just getting to know each other. 

During the second year of the program Vick experienced a lot of upheaval in her life. She switched jobs, and she announced that she and her husband had decided to separate. She decided to leave the program after second year, to focus on her work and her family, as well as her health. She had never had any major health issues but she suffered from intense migraines, some of which caused her to have slight seizures. 

We made an effort to stay in touch. A few months after she left, she contacted me to tell me that she wanted our friendship to be sustained outside of the program, and she wanted, point blank, to be friends with me. I told her I felt the same and that year our friendship flourished. She invited me over for meals, and I chatted up her son about Harry Potter. She told me how her separation from her husband was going, and how she was exploring her sexuality after realizing she was much more in her own skin when she could explore bisexual relationships. She talked about going out with women she had crushes on and how happy it made her. We celebrated her 50th birthday over Thai food. I celebrated Passover with her and her son.

During that year, as we bonded, she began to have more frequent migraines and fatigue as well as a lot of anxiety. She took a health leave from her new job and decided to begin writing more. We began working on a project together where I sent her some of my collages and she wrote short poetry to go with them, which ended up being used in a small exhibit I did. We had plans to make a children's book together, and to illustrate and write together more often. 

I hadn't heard from Vick in perhaps a couple of weeks, and I wrote her an email to see how she was and ask if we could meet up for tea. Less than 48 hours later, I got a message from one of the professors at the school we attended together. Vick had died. Suddenly and unexpectedly. I don't know that I've ever felt such shock. She was just gone, and I had no idea how, or when. All of the students from the school were sent details of her funeral and invited to attend. 

It wasn't until months later that I even found out where or how she had died. Her parents were visiting and staying with her. She hadn't been feeling well. She told her parents she was going for a run and asked them to watch her son. She didn't come back for quite some time and her parents called the police. They thought she'd gone out to run and something must have happened. The police told them that they couldn't file a missing person report until 24 hours later, but that the family could go out looking for her. I'm not sure how they thought to go down to the basement, but it seems someone did, and found Vick there, beside her treadmill. She hadn't gone outside to run, she had gone downstairs to her treadmill. They think she had an aneurysm, passed out while running and just died, then and there. They don't know how long she'd been lying on the floor. I can't even think about it without tearing up again. None of it made sense.

It felt so odd being at the funeral, standing at the back of the room with other students from the class just trying to digest it all. I recognized her son and ex-husband but knew very few of her friends, and none of her family, who had all come from California. It seemed like a strange dream in which I was an impostor who had just lost someone that I had so much more to do with, so much more to know about.

What has your experience of grief been like since your loss? How did it change over time?

Vick's death and the process of grieving was so different from previous losses I’ve experienced. It felt like an assault, like something was stolen from me. It felt harsh and heavy and violent. I was a complete mess when I heard the news, and I had an enormous sense of anger that I carried with me for a number of months afterwards. I remember bawling heavily for hours. I had no idea what to do. I had no one to reach out to. I didn't know her family, I didn't know her friends, I just wanted to reach out to her, to Vick. I was in shock for the better part of six months, not knowing where to put my grief other than on my now husband's shoulders. Mentally I felt confused, lost, mudded. Physically I felt tight and wound. Emotionally I felt angry, horribly sad, and somehow empty. It was a friendship so new yet so meaningful, with so much light and connection and promise, and it was just gone.

Over time it dulled and softened, and went more inward. I learned later that the University of Toronto had erected a commemorative bench for her on Philosopher's Walk on campus, just outside of The Royal Conservatory. I was often at the Conservatory, as I work there occasionally. It felt so special and perhaps even a bit kismet that her bench was right there. It felt like a sign that our friendship was real, that it actually meant something. Whenever I would go to the offices for meetings or classes, I got to sit on her bench, have my lunch, have a tea. She felt so far away yet somehow a little closer, knowing her name was there. 

I've realized that every year at the end of May, I can't stop thinking about her. I start to remember our friendship and the things we talked about, the meals we ate together, the streetcar rides we took together either by chance or because we'd planned to see each other. It's when I remember that this was the time of year that she died. My son was born in May, and every year, after his birthday, I'm overcome with thoughts of Vick again.

If you had to describe your grief as a literal landscape, what would it look like and feel like at different points since your loss?

Initially the grief was a hard and dark brick wall. It was physically painful to come up against. Thinking of Vick was like knives in my chest. Hard, heavy, not cold, but hot, sweaty even. Eventually it started to ease and turned more into waves, like sitting on an ocean and feeling like you wish you could connect with what was on the other side, whoever is out there, wherever they are. It's windy and comes and goes.

Tell me about an object that reminds you of the person who died, and why? 

Vick loved to learn to cook new things and one night she invited me over for dinner. She said she was really into this Jamie Oliver cookbook. That night she made me scallops sautéed with arugula and peas. It was one of the best meals I've ever had made for me. We sat, we ate, we drank wine, we chatted about our shared crush on Jamie Oliver. Anytime I see one of his cookbooks I think of that meal, I think of Vick, and it makes me smile.

How did the people in your life support you in your grief? What was helpful? What was frustrating?

I felt like there weren't many people with whom I shared my grief. I shared the most with my husband, Joel. Within the first two years of our being together he held me through the loss of my cousin, then Vick, and then my grandmother. I couldn't believe how understanding he was. He just listened when something came up. 

What was the hardest for me was feeling like I didn't have anyone else to talk to about it. None of my other close friends really knew her. Our relationship was quite private I suppose, perhaps because it was still new. It felt strange speaking about it to people who didn't know her. My classmates were good about it too, and we talked about her passing in class for a couple of weeks after. Then it all just seemed to fade for them, yet for me it didn't.

How did people who were grieving the same person respond to the death compared to you? What similarities and differences did you notice?

I felt disconnected from others who were grieving, because I didn't know her family and or many of her friends. I had connected with her brother at the funeral and told him about the project we'd been working on; that she'd written poetry for my pieces. He gave me his email so that I could send him some images. I emailed him and told him I would be honoured to send him a piece, as a gift. He chose one and I mailed it out to him, but we didn't really speak after that. 

At one point, perhaps a few weeks after Vick’s death, I emailed her telling her that I missed her, and that I wanted to write to her because I didn't know where else to talk about how I felt about her death. It felt somehow satisfying to send out that email into the void. And who knows, perhaps her family or her ex had access to the email and read it, I don't know. But if they did, they never wrote back to tell me.

How did your private grieving relate to your public mourning?

My grieving was all private. Where the grieving had a chance to be public was perhaps at our graduation from the program. I asked the class if we could honour Vick by putting out a chair for her with ours during the ceremony. The staff spoke about her and we took a moment. It felt nice, but like a token. Something to honour her as much as that setting allowed.

Were there any personal or public rituals or structures that helped you in your grief? 

I really immersed myself in my collage work; Vick’s death sparked a huge commitment in me to be the artist I wanted to be. To keep going, to make it my life, my profession. I loved that Vick was not apologetic about who she was or how she felt. She didn't apologize for wanting what she wanted. She made me feel like I had a voice that deserved to be heard, and that my art was worth seeing. I'm endlessly thankful for that.

A couple of years ago at this time, I remember a night when my husband took my son for dinner at his family. We had planned that I would stay home and do some studio work because I'd barely had the chance since my son was born. I went out and bought myself some scallops, and I made a dish similar to the one that Vick had made me. I brought it into my studio and I poured myself a glass of wine and I worked. I toasted Vick and I collaged. It made me so happy, and it made me feel connected to her again.

How did your loss and your experience of grief change you?

It made me very aware of hidden grief, in others and in myself. When Vick died I felt I was selfish for being so upset. How could I feel so violated when her family must feel even worse! How could I admit to my grief without feeling I was being dramatic? The privacy of my grief really made me aware of the "circles" of a death. There is the family, and there are the close friends everyone knows about, people who may have known the individual since childhood. But then there are those that you may not think are affected, yet aren't they? You never know how something will hit you, and you can never know how many people it hits. It's taken me a long time to grieve Vick I think in large part because I never felt seen in it by those who knew her best, because I didn't know them.

It's all feels so complicated really, and it's still hard for me to really accept and be OK with how much I miss her, how much I crumbled when she died. To accept and feel OK about knowing that our friendship mattered, that it meant something. It's like a secret I carry, my loss of Vick.

Catherine Mellinger is a mixed media collage artist, art facilitator and certified Expressive Arts Therapist who lives in Waterloo, Ontario with her husband and son. She is currently working on a visual/literary collaboration with Toronto writer Marianne Apostolides titled Deep Salt Water, which will be published by BookThug Press in Spring of 2017. For more information on Catherine's work, visit her website.

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This post is part of Grief Landscapes, an evolving art project documenting the unique terrain of people’s grief. Participants share an experience with bereavement, and I photograph an object that evokes the person who died, transforming it into an abstract landscape inspired by the story.