When Daniel died, writing took on a whole new meaning for me. Writing was my sanity, my lifeline to coping with the tragedy of losing a child to cancer. There were times I couldn't wait to rush to the shelter of my home so that I could pull out my pen and journal and pour out my heart. In the early days of grief, I needed a way to organize my muddled thoughts, work out my emotions, and scribble my prayers and fears.
Writing is an essential tool in grief. Writing calms us, lowers our blood pressure, slows our pulse, and keeps our minds from going crazy. When we can write out our feelings, they no longer loom large and out of control. By putting them on paper, we have contained them to a workable space in our journal. We can read them over and over and analyze, or we can choose to never look at our words again. Whatever our decision, the act of writing from our broken heart is healing.
My next Writing the Heartache online course starts May 24th and runs to June 25th. In these five weeks, I'll send participants assignments to complete via email. When these are sent back to me, I'll offer critique, support, and suggestions. We'll discuss writing for publication as well.
Outline for Writing the Heartache Writing Workshop
1. Week One: Introduction - Getting to Know You
2. Week Two: Introducing Your Loved One Through Poetry
3. Week Three: Writing a Letter to Your Loved One and to Others
4. Week Four: Writing for Change - The Essay
5. Week Five: Writing for Publication
We lost our 8th child, Kara Faith, to a brain birth defect and she had a heart defect. This was 11 weeks ago today. I was thinking about writing a book. I am still processing everything, but I have a blog for her that walked with us through the journey to encourage other families that were going through the same things and it ended up being faith building for all that read it. God is so good that way!
ReplyDeleteNancy, so sorry about your loss. I know you miss Kara every day. Glad that writing has become a healing tool for yourself and others at this time.
ReplyDelete~ Alice