Beginning to write through grief: A reflection & link to my poem at the Sultan’s Seal

I am, as many know, dealing with a multi-layered, complex grief—my mother, my father, and one of my closest friends—all lost within the last six months. When my parents died in July, I entertained an immediate grief project, my own mourning diary, an echo of Roland Barthes. I started with a subdued passion, an ache as intellectual as emotional. In truth, my emotions were, I can now see, constrained and intellectualized.

I was numb.

Others reached out to me in those early weeks, sharing their own stories. The terrain of grief is rocky, I was warned. The journey long. The pain uneven. But, although I am in mid-life, a loss of this nature—doubled and complicated—was something I had never faced.

Then my friend took her own life sometime on September 1st. Even though I knew, in my heart, that such an event was almost inevitable, the pain and anger tore me apart. I knew she had tried every available option she could afford to fight an erratic and devastating variation of bipolar disorder, and I fully respected her decision and her right to make it. But suddenly my world was a darker, lonelier place.

And she had lived half a world away.

Again, the first thing I thought of was to write. This time, my distance from her demanded and informed my need to write—and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to gather words and sentences from her writing and our communications, and together with some photographs from my trip to visit her in South Africa, create an elegy.

An offering.beach

Drawing inspiration from a prose piece by Breyten Breytenbach, and the sound driven writings of my friend, Daniela Cascella, I set to work. And I knew exactly where I wanted to publish this memorial if I was able to realize my vision—The Sultan’s Seal, a most wonderful space created and curated by Egyptian writer, Youssef Rakha.

The result, “And I will Tell You Something,” was published this past weekend. Three hundred words, five images and almost three months shaping, reshaping, listening and accepting the silence that emerged. This is perhaps the most emotionally demanding piece I have ever written. Yet, now five days after my words were finally set free in the world, I feel a tremendous sense of rightness. An element of peace. I still ache, but, with this prose poem, I feel I can begin to heal.

And I hope that others may find something in it too.

Author: roughghosts

Literary blog of Joseph Schreiber. Writer. Reader. Editor. Photographer.

20 thoughts on “Beginning to write through grief: A reflection & link to my poem at the Sultan’s Seal”

  7. oh my gosh, what a beautiful poem. You left me in tears. Did you find the writing and publishing of it to be cathartic? That is not really the right word, did it give you solace? I hope it did.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. The writing was very slow. I could not really pull it together until I was coming out of a period of depression. Finishing it and having it published—and having it look so good with my photos—gives me some distance. I could not be there when her ashes were scattered, this is my memorial for her.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. I’m battling. Her death and other things. It feels like the blogging community that ‘was’ has scattered to the wind since she left. Like she held us all together. I know life changes, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I was like you, wanted to contact her, but conflicted to give her her space. Guilt, guilt, regret. My mother’s suicide revisited. I wasn’t as close to her as you were. I can’t imagine your pain. I’m so sorry. Having prior experience, I should have done more. Love and take care xx

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.