The Art in Healing

For two years I’ve been coming back home to an empty house. Empty that is, except for our two dogs who wait for Don to walk through the door.

But that is not going to happen.

In February 2018, an ambulance was summoned to our Akron home. I called 911 after Don told me that he thought he was having a heart attack. I gathered all his medication information off of the refrigerator door while the EMTs were helping him onto a gurney to take him to the hospital. 

I was told to sit in the front seat. Already, I was fearing our losses of romantic dreams, our younger selves, impossible expectations, and illusions of safety, freedom and power.

I wish I could do that moment over again. I never got to sit with him in the back to say goodbye and that I loved him. 

What do I do about the feelings of pain and guilt?

I had just lost the most principal person in my life, then my sister and her son. In all, we lost 10 people among family and friends that year.

The trauma of all that loss was unbearable.

Some say that grief is the feeling that one carries within. It’s an inner experience, like depression. In me, grief physically manifested in my legs feeling off balance, and I nearly fell. I was forgetting things and feeling frustrated. I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t myself.

My family responds to grief as most people I know, by mourning in groups with a funeral and calling hours. Brendan, Don’s oldest son and also a writer, had set up a slide presentation at the calling hours consisting of Don’s friends, family and his racing days because that created the most interest for him and the boys. Throughout the six-hour calling hours, several people paid homage to Don, who was well-known from the magazine. Since I was welcoming so many people, I didn’t get to speak with all of Don’s acquaintances. It was tiring, mainly because I was too drained to really let go in front of new people.

Artist Don Drumm came by to find out what symbol we wanted on the urn he was making. We decided quickly. Drumm had also been interested in the labyrinth that Don and I had been researching. It made sense that it would go on the lid of his urn.

Don and I became familiar with that symbol after I started a cancer support group in 1990 while I received chemotherapy. It ended when I completed my bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Kent State University and started pursuing my master’s in art therapy at Ursuline College. By that time, we became acquainted with the labyrinth built around 1201 in Chartres, France, and we walked a similar path in San Francisco. The support group turned into a healing arts group. We did research, and with church volunteers, Don and I painted a labyrinth on a 36-foot portable canvas as part of what became the Labyrinth Project at the First Congregational Church of Akron, where we attended services. 

While painting the labyrinth, I noticed Don went outward and I went inward, which was the exact opposite of how we each viewed the world. The sacred path prompts self-reflection. 

The Labyrinth Project had meaning for both of us. Don and I ran the project together for nearly 10 years until 2018. The last walk was with him only in spirit, as it was right after his death.

Afterward, the grief didn’t go completely away. I felt it come full force once the others were gone. 

All it took the other day was walking into our son Colin’s home where he and his wife had a large photo of Don hanging on the wall. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It seemed so real. I just wanted it to come to life — and for a moment, time stood absolutely still, as did my heart.

We all wish to return to our pre-loss circumstances, and we try to make sense or meaning of the loss. When Don died, I wondered if I could manage alone. Losing him, I felt I’d lost the dream for my future. I realized I had to try to put the past behind me and formulate my own plan to move on with art.

I had been happy in the art therapy work I was doing, and I couldn’t see myself trying to retire from it or to start over with something new after his death. Art and people were my life, and Don understood that. Don was a more private person and enjoyed his time writing, though I have to say he was beginning to open up more to people in his later years.

Emotional pain is the hardest to let go of when grieving. We feel denial, disbelief, confusion, sadness, shock, anger, despair. We blame ourselves, think of all the things we could have done and said, then guilt creeps in. 

How do we let go of those feelings? I know we need to express them. That’s the only way to let them go.

I met with the previous healing arts group, and the members were supportive of me working toward healing my grief. As I went to the meetings and discussed grief, I discovered an odd problem: I was occasionally overcome by inappropriate laughter during emotional moments, which mortified me. I was embarrassed because I couldn’t stop. I learned it was part of the grief being expressed, but the more I tried to stop, the more I laughed and cried.

I was able to settle down and recover from the episode, as everyone around me was understanding. I felt relieved to find kindness as I went through that stage of my grief. There was only one other event of laughter with two of my art therapy colleagues. Then it stopped. 

Recently, I started to feel strong enough to work on the Labyrinth Project again. Our church permitted me to restart the project last October. I know I need to get the word out to the congregation and the community on how to gain knowledge and find peace by walking the sacred path.

In time, our family began healing. I summoned all the kids and my extended family to share stories, and we laughed at the most endearing things.

I am a person who survives on nervous energy, while Don, on the other hand, was what we all called a “mosey-er.” He took his time doing everything, and the more we prodded, the slower he became.

In our hearts, we all know that death is part of life. Death gives meaning to our existence because it reminds us of how precious life is. It can be transformational.

It took time but once I acknowledged the loss, the pain eased and allowed me to move forward with my life. I went back to my training as an art therapist and did some art therapy that was calming — filling photo albums like I did when I had cancer and when my mom died. It was meaningful. I also made an altered book, which is an exercise that led me on an exploration, doing collages, painting, writing stories and poems, altering what was known and journeying into the unknown.

For me it is good to stand in front of the easel again, creating in my studio. I feel at home there. I’ve also started reading and writing again. And when I need a break, my dogs are there to comfort me. They are always by my side. Animals are intuitive, and they seem to know when I’m feeling down.

I’m learning from my memories, and I’m reminded that I can do things on my own without relying on others. But my daughters pointed out that my work always included being around people. 

During the grieving process, I became a recluse, neglecting my friends and not going out for fear that grief might strike in an uncomfortable way, like the inappropriate laughing. Thankfully all the children and grandchildren do their best to get me to put myself out there.

Don and I had a 40-year bond. When he went, I felt those 40 years leave empty space around me. In that emptiness I’m reminded of a quote by writer Joseph Campbell, “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

I need to fill that space with good and funny memories of love, family, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and extended family. I have to be able to put myself out there not only for others but for myself, too. 

Don’s passing happened so fast that there wasn’t a clear moment to say goodbye. I realize now I was in shock. I know he’s around because I still feel his presence and see his smiling face. As the book “A Course in Miracles” tells us, “All healing is release from the past.”

It took writing this article to realize that holding onto the guilt of not having that moment was really about holding onto the grief. I didn’t want to face that Don was gone. But I had to accept it and no longer hang onto the past. The pain is still there because I’ll never stop missing him. I realize I can’t live through Don. I have to honor his memory by being strong, for him and myself. It’s what he would have wanted.

Before Don died, he said two things to me: “You have to finish your book,” and “Please go back to your painting.” I promised him I would on both counts. It will be tough, but I know I’ll find my own way. So I’m standing in my studio at my easel with pages of my book lying in piles around me, and I’m beginning to feel motivated again.