Creative Grief Can Be a Motivating Power

By Darla Isackson 

Deanna Edwards, in her book Grieving: The Pain and the Promise, told of the great late actor Paul Newman. After he lost his son Scott to a drug overdose, he started the Scott Newman Foundation, which still functions today, helping young people become more aware of the dangers of drug abuse. His son's death shaped Newman's later years, turning him more and more to humanitarian and philanthropic causes, including a summer camp for sick children that helps as many as 13,000 children every year. 

Not many of us have the resources to respond in such major ways in our grief, but all of us can do something of creative value. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.” Pain—especially the pain caused by grief—helps us find out what lies within us.  I love to read about people, like Newman, who have responded to grief with courage, nobility, and creativity—and in so doing discovered their own potential. 

Here are two more examples: Candy Lightner, whose daughter died in a drunk driving accident, founded the group MADD—Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Her efforts have helped make our highways safer and laws tougher against those who drink and drive. The Adam Walsh Center was founded by Reve and John Walsh, whose six-year-old son, Adam, was abducted and brutally murdered. The Center issued a call to action at the state and national levels for passage of stronger laws to protect children. The recovery of many missing children can be attributed to the awareness of the public from seeing resulting pictures on milk cartons, grocery bags, and TV shows. These acts of creative grieving have helped many.

Starting Small

Are you grieving? Seek a creative outlet for your grief. It doesn’t need to be something monumental. A display in your home, a scrapbook, or a new flower garden can be meaningful. If your creativity provides nothing more than an outlet for you and a better understanding about life, it has served its purpose. 

We can learn to channel our pain into creative acts by starting with small things with the small hurts in our lives. For instance, Deanna Edwards tells of her decision to spend the seven hours she had to wait in an airport when her flight had been overbooked to write letters of love, rather than fuming and fretting.  She says, “When we choose to create with pain, I am amazed at how the scenery changes, how we leave the unwanted baggage of anger and frustration behind.” We can choose to turn even relatively small problems and disappointments into opportunities to create something beautiful.  

Creative grief often involves taking your pain and making something of positive, lasting value with it. Creative grief so often leads to meaningful service. Heidi Hamilton, who lost an infant son, wrote, “After Link died and I began to meet many other bereaved parents, I saw more and more goodness that came from grief. So many angel parents have taken their tragedy and turned it into something good. Service. Giving back from that hole, that abyss in their hearts - that place that the most precious thing in the world was taken from them. Beauty from ashes. One mother makes quilts to give to newly bereaved parents. Another does fundraising to help out with headstone costs. I have a friend that crochets tiny outfits for stillborn babies. And the local SHARE group here does so much to comfort, provide photography, clothing, and memorial items for stillborn babies. It's just so wonderful. So inspiring.” We are all traveling on the train of life and can improve the scenery with positive thoughts and actions.

Creative grief can motivate us to organize a scripture study plan, bake and share some hot bread, write a poem or a song, plant a flower or a tree, do genealogy work, write in a journal, or do volunteer work. In time, our creative efforts can become an automatic response to losses, both large and small. Instead of asking, “Why did this terrible thing happen to me?” our question can be, “What can I create from this experience that I may not have been able to do otherwise?”

My Experience of Creating with Grief

The last thing on earth I ever aspired to do was to write books of comfort for those who had lost a loved one to suicide. Then my second son Brian died that way, and almost immediately, I became aware of an inner voice telling me to learn all I could from this terrible experience so I could someday help others who were suffering. In the nine years since that horrific day, I’ve watched my pain become a tool to create something better of my life; the unbearable became more bearable as I shared my grief and attempted to comfort other grievers.

The process of creating books of comfort from my grief was the best therapy I could have found. It increased my awareness of and respect for others who have the courage to open their hearts and minds in order to learn from their own pain. I felt my grief changing me as I used it to clarify and define my feelings and help others do the same. I gained an increased awareness of fellow-sufferers and increased compassion for them. 

Creative grief has taught me that we are not strangers after all. We are all bonded together in our humanness by our sorrows as well as our joys. When we create with grief, we are left with the feeling that we have been in the presence of Someone greater than ourselves, a presence that can lift us and help us to make the world a better place. 

Learn more about the books Darla created from her grief on Amazon.com or on Darla’s personal website: darlaisackson.com. If you know someone struggling with loss and grief, you may wish to tell them about the following books:

 • Finding Hope While Grieving Suicide: Opening Your Heart to the Healing Only God Can Give 

• After My Son’s Suicide: An LDS Mother Finds Comfort in Christ and Strength to Go On 

• Trust God No Matter What!