Writing as a tool for transformation:
Finding the gifts in our postpandemic world BY RAYYA LIEBICH
A
fter almost a year and a half of global grief, I am stumbling out of quietude and looking for ways to reconnect with the world and with others. For many like me, it is a time of great excitement—and anxiety. COVID has impacted us differently as individuals, yet we have experienced a worldwide grief immersion together. While navigating the pandemic, we have shared in the collective discomfort of recognizing our own mortality. None of us are immune to loss. Hopes and dreams, expectations, livelihoods, time with beloved friends and family—the world as we knew it came to a screeching halt. My personal crash course in grief came seven years ago following my mother’s sudden death. On that dark January morning, I sat in shock at my kitchen table. There was a blizzard in my rural town, I needed to fly overseas, and my passport had expired. I did the only thing that made any logical sense. I picked up my pen and started writing. Over the next five years, I was able to transform the confusion, chaos, and heartache of loss through poetry. Putting pen to paper was a cathartic outlet that allowed me to move through every tangle and knot. Through writing, I found a way to organize and make sense of the unimaginable. Day after day, page after page, I found my way toward healing. Grief is a complex and misunderstood visitor. As author and activist Stephen Jenkinson highlights, we live in a world of death phobia and grief illiteracy. Our culture lacks the language, rituals, and supports to
4
wordworks | 2021 Volume III September
hold the bereaved. Yet to move into this postpandemic phase, we desperately need to develop the skills to make peace with what will never be, and to actively mourn our losses. One of the most heart-wrenching and valuable lessons I have learned is that your old life dies when you lose someone you love—or, in this case, when the world loses so many lives at once. At the same time, we have the incredible chance to move into a deeper appreciation of what it means to live fully. Contrary to popular belief, grieving and mourning are not interchangeable terms. Grief is the internal experience of loss. Mourning is when you take your internal feelings and express them outwardly. Actions like writing allow the loss to be acknowledged and the feelings to transform. Without actively mourning, grievers can feel stuck in the traumatic memory. Writing allowed me to mourn my loss, and so I was also able to make radical and brave decisions guided by the clarity of my grief. I left my ten-year career as a Waldorf teacher and committed to my dream of becoming a writer. I wrote poem after poem until I was able to publish a chapbook and, eventually, a fulllength collection of poems in memory of my mother. I connected with my local hospice and created a curriculum called Writing through the Grief to assist others in healing their losses. I swam upstream against a culture that wanted me to pull it together, move on, and get over my grief. But the more I connected with grievers, the more I understood how our societal taboos are holding us back from healing. I found a new joy for life by facilitating death cafés at the
