6 Ways to Have the Last Word

Post office Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria

Dear Dad,

Dear Rusty dawg,

Dear Grandma,

Dear Loved One,

Writing a letter to a loved one who has died can be a healthy and very helpful way to express the thoughts and feelings we may not have had the chance to say earlier. Sometimes the death is unexpected and sudden. We may not have had the words or courage to say what was on our heart the last time we saw our loved one alive. Or, we just have more that we want to say.

When my friend Ted died of suicide, I wrote him a letter, and then burnt it out on the driveway. However, I know people who have written a letter to a deceased loved one and just put the note away to keep. I also knew a young girl who wrote a letter to her aborted baby and buried the letter under a tree in the cemetery.  Each letter and each decision what to do with the letter is as unique as the grief that we each experience.

Jennifer Wortham, a brilliant expressive art therapist in New York, shared the following ideas  with me during a teleconference we did together for an online course I was teaching.

"Stuff to write in your letter" ( my own title - Jenn is much more eloquent than me)

a.      Three things that the deceased loved one appreciated about you.

b.      Three  things that the deceased loved one disliked about you.

c.      Three things that you appreciated about the deceased loved one.

d.      Three  things that you disliked about the deceased loved one.

e.      A letter asking for forgiveness.

f.    A letter granting forgiveness .

Jenn wisely included topics which cause us to consider the complexity of relationships - they aren't always wonderful or perfect. Sometimes the people we love, can also really annoy us. We need to grief those parts of our loved one's personality  just as we mourn the traits that we adored.

Looking at the list, I'm struggling to believe that there was anything that my Dad disliked about me - I'm his oldest daughter - his first born !!!! Other than a few dumb choices about boyfriends, and moving across the country after university, and forgetting his actual birth day year after year, and losing my Mom at Honest Ed's one time, what was there not to like?

I need to take a breath, and be brave...just like the act of grieving.

In the meantime, I just finished a fascinating book " The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion. It's her account of the first year after her husband died mid conversation at dinner. She describes her experience of grief vividly...beautifully written.

Warmly
Wendy