Grief Graffiti

So grateful to everyone who helped us celebrate my boy! We had dinner at his favorite steakhouse (thank you Mastro’s for making it so special), then his crew, friends & family helped me commemorate a plaque display (including a tiny urn with some of his ashes) & do a champagne toast (Cliquot, his fav) for him that will permanently hang in his fave Graffiti Shop so people can stop by & show some love anytime! 

 Special days can be so hard when you’ve lost someone, and his birthday was no exception. But grief experts say you should keep the traditions, rituals & celebrations you made with your person to keep their memory alive. And somehow it helps you find joy in the midst of sorrow, peace in the pain. 

“Another way to look at these special days is that they are each a collection of rituals. They are, therefore, opportunities for us to process our grief in an active way. The challenge is to find new meaning in old birthday rituals, or to invent new rituals that can somehow incorporate or acknowledge our new loss. Denial, and our natural fear of pain, may urge us to avoid gathering with people on these difficult days, and yet these may be the times when we could use their support the most. If you are able to celebrate a particular event with friends and family, it can be yet another opportunity for people to bear witness to your loss and for you to find the words to express your grief. These traditions provide continuity with the life we led before our loss. That is, after all, what a tradition does: it creates continuity in the life of a family. It can be very hard to engage in these traditions, especially the first time after a loss. But hopefully we can find, over time, more solace than suffering in these practices.”

~Colin Campbell, “Finding the Words”