Raising Grace All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.

Through your grief process what has kept you going?

Oh my… my husband and my daughter, most definitely.

My art, too.

One day, I was looking through my teacher things and came across a poem.  My students were reading “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck and I was looking for supplemental materials to tie in to the story.  I had stashed a poem by Emily Dickinson away in a folder and pulled it out to read it.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul
and sings the tune–without the words
and never stops at all.”
~Emily Dickinson

I couldn’t get that part of the poem out of my brain.  It stuck there, swirling around when I got up in the morning and when I went to bed at night.  I suddenly, finally, had an urge to create something.  My first idea was to take the poem and make pendants out of it to give to other women at the hospital who had lost their babies.  Then, it morphed into memory boxes, the poem handwritten around the bottom of the box.  These I also donated to the hospital.

Then, I started making beaded bookmarks, which then morphed into lanyards when a nurse at the support group I attend suggested I make lanyards out of the beaded strands I had.

I have found my creative streak again and it makes me happy to create things in honor of my son.  I miss him every day but being able to create something in his honor helps me feel closer to him.