Writing About Loss

Since the movie takes place in my home town, I was lucky enough to see a screening of the documentary, Young @ Heart, several months ago, before it was released for national distribution. I *loved* it–and not only because I enjoyed seeing familiar street shots and knew several of the people. What struck me was the resiliency and love of life possessed by this extraordinary senior citizen chorus, and how they continually went against their grain, singing songs from the likes of The Talking Heads and James Brown. It was a movie that really played to emotions, and at many different points, I found myself quickly transitioning from laughing to crying to laughing again.

So I was shocked when my 20-year-old daughter went to see it this week and didn’t like it. “It was too sad,” she said, referring to the untimely deaths of two of the members during the six-week period when the movie was filmed.

Yes, it was sad. Death is sad and scary. Loss, whether it’s close to us or from a distance, will often make us cry. But the point as I see it is that death happens–in life, in film and in fiction. You can be scared, philosophical, or in denial. We all deal with death in different ways. I’m not sure what my own way is, other than it keeps worming its way into my writing. I remember when I was writing mostly short stories back in my twenties, my mother remarked that I had a thing with death and it was true–so much of my fiction involved, and continues to involve loss, even though I haven’t had an excessive amount of loss in my personal life.

I believe it was Flaubert who said that writers don’t choose their subjects; the subjects choose us. I don’t consciously know why my work often involves loss. But in my fiction, as well as in Young@Heart, the point isn’t the grieving; it’s the connections formed to self and others through the grieving process. In a key scene in the movie, the chorus is on a bus on the way to give a performance at a correctional institution when they are told that one of their members has died. Minutes later, they are standing out in the sun announcing his death and dedicating their next song, Forever Young to his memory. You see shots of tears coming out of the eyes of prisoners who did not even know this man, and I doubt there are too many dry eyes among the movie viewers. Later you see the elders and prisoners hugging; a prisoner says this was the best concert he’s ever seen in his life, and you know, it’s not about the music, but about the emotion–the connection.

So perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to writing about loss. It’s a way of allowing people to process and connect with themselves and each other. And it’s a way of giving permission to grieve in a grief-phobic world.

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.