It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

by Megan Devine

GIVE GRIEF A VOICE Even if you don’t identify yourself as a writer, please give writing a try. Throughout this book, you’ll find writing exercises and prompts to get you started; there’s also a prompt included below. Set a timer for ten minutes. Even if you have to write the prompt itself, or write “Why am I doing this?” over and over, keep writing until the timer goes off. Once you’ve finished, draw (or type) a line under your writing. Below the line, write a few sentences about what it felt like to write your response to the prompt.1 If your grief isn’t “fixed” (spoiler: it won’t be), is anything different? What did you find in your writing? This prompt is taken from the Writing Your Grief course. I asked my students to nominate their favorites, and this one was the clear winner: If you were writing fiction, you’d want to know the voice of your main character. You’d want to know the way they walk, the kinds of food they eat, how they comb or don’t comb their hair. They would need to be real. In a way, your grief is a character: it has a rhythm and a voice. It is particular to you. If we’re going to be working with grief, let’s find out who it is. The creative tool is called personification. What we’re really doing is giving grief, itself, a voice. When it has a voice, it can tell us things. Let’s think of this exercise as inviting your grief to introduce himself or herself to you. Here’s an off-the-cuff exampl...