Writing About Loss–An Invitation to Share Your Stories

WRITING ABOUT LOSS: TELL US YOUR STORY

When Gus is mourning his father in Playing Dad’s Song, his thinking about him, talking about him, and writing songs for him helps him heal from his grief. We all have our own stories of losing loved ones, and at times it’s uncomfortable or sad to talk about how we feel. But writing can be a way of sharing these feelings in a safe and supportive space, and when we write about someone, no matter how rough or unpolished our words are, we honor their memory.

 I invite children and teens to share their stories of loss in this blog, so that we can honor the memories of people we have loved, and I invite all to read and respond to these offerings, so that those who have offered their memories know that they have been heard.

 
I will start the sharing by posting a memory of my grandfather, who died eight years ago. He was a violinist, and this memory is about that. There are many musicians in my family, which definitely was part of the reason I chose to make Playing Dad’s Song a book about music.

 

GRANDPA’S VIOLIN

 

When I was a child, my grandfather’s old violin lived on the mantle in front of the dark walls in his house. Its strings had broken their hold and swung coarse and loose over the bridge. I could see the violin’s reflection next to mine when I looked into the wall length mirror. I would watch my grandfather practice in front of the mirror, his white handkerchief flapping over the neck piece—how funny it looked against his flannel shirt and suspenders. How funny he looked next to the old photo of a blond teenager with pursed lips and dark eyes, the violin tucked neatly under his arm in rest position.

 

Once, when no one was looking, I touched the violin. Most of the time I satisfied myself by trying to touch its reflection, the specks of light that chose to reverberate as he continued to practice in front of the mirror, as if to look into the boy he once was. I watched his shaking hands as he moved the bow along the high string, the skin stretched taught over the knuckled bone. I continued to watch him into his 70s, 80s, and 90s, noticing the intensity of his pursed lips, the importance of each note, and how the bow gave it life along the string.

 

The summer before my grandfather died, my son played for my grandfather for the first time. I was nervous about this encounter. At 5 & 1/2, my son had hardly perfected his technique. He never looked in the mirror. He rarely looked at the bow. But as they leaned into “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” and my grandfather made sure to correct every note that missed its true self by less than a hair, I felt inspired by his love of music, his vision of perfection. Eight years later, my son purses his lips and stands in front of the mirror, playing the violin that used to be my grandfather’s. In his music, I hear the memories.

 

 

 

Writing About the Holocaust–A poem by 8th grader, Greg Wong

About a month ago, I visited students at Temple Sinai in Worcester, MA, where I read from Escaping Into the Night and also facilitated a brief writing workshop, inviting students to write their own stories and responses to the Holocaust. The responses were amazing–sensitive, well-crafted, evocative, and I invited students to finish what they wrote and send their pieces to me.

What I would like to do with this section of my website is to post some children’s and teen’s writing about the Holocaust and invite responses to this as a way of open sharing about how the Holocaust still affects us, even though it happened 60 years ago. Some questions to think about:

What lessons does the Holocaust teach us? What can we do about similar atrocities motivated by racial hatred that are still going on in the world today?

As a start to this discussion, I am posting a poem by 8th grader Greg Wong. A sestina is a special form of poetry. There are six stanzas with six lines each. The same six words end all the stanzas (though not in the same order). The poem ends with three lines that again use all of the same six words.

Please feel free to respond to Greg’s amazing poem, and to send your own finished pieces.

SESTINA

Here they come, with their helmets

Here they come, with their boots

Every time they come, another forcibly leaves

And they know who to take for our people are in the ghettoes.

How have we wronged

The people that treat

 

us so? Do we deserve no treats?

Do they? With their proud helmets

and all the wrong

They have brought to the world via their shining black leather boots

They threw us in the ghetto

Prisons and made us leave

 

Our homes. How can they make us leave

What we have worked so hard for – the treats

We have earned. The crowded ghetto

Gets no shielding from the helmets,

And no way to be carried on by the boots.

Why has everything gone wrong?

 

All that has been wronged

Cannot be fixed, nor can the colored leaves

That fall free without hesitation. Now the boots

Are heard marching, treating

The dirt with a violent rage. I see the helmets

Of the men marching through the ghetto

 

They have no remorse for the people in the ghetto,

They care not how they have wronged

us. All these men care about is their own power, shown as a simple helmet

I hear children crying to stay and not leave,

The men see this as a treat,

And the children are silenced with a swing of the man’s boot.

 

He used an example of his power, through use of a boot.

The whole time, I watch through a window in my house in the ghetto

I see that the men do not have feeling for the treatment

Of people, of how they wrong

Us. I can’t stand to watch any longer as the family leaves

For the death camp. There, there are too many helmets.

 

They treat us, as if we have wronged,

Beating us with boots, as we starve in the ghettoes

For if we do not leave, we face death, without the protection of a helmet

 

Greg Wong

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