Mini Art Therapy, Mourning, and Me
(Mourning tapestries, memory balls, and butterflies)
The death of a loved one doesn’t happen twice. There’s nothing we can fix, nothing we can make up for, nothing we can repeat. Death takes away our loved ones and the relationship we build with them once and for all. We are left with a memory. This works to our advantage but also causes a lot of pain. Today I will tell you about the art therapy way of commemorating loved ones whose passing we mourn.
In the picture, we can see memory balls suspended on thin strings. Each of them means a loved one who has passed away, but also someone who wants to remember him. Each element of such a ball has a symbolic meaning. The color of the yarn, the number of butterflies around, and the selection of leaves are not accidental. It is associated with the memory of the deceased.
The theme of the exhibition organized in Singapore, titled Tapestries of Mourning: Testimony Through Art Therapy, was to celebrate, connect with and remember the dead. The organizers of the exhibition said that mourning is usually a private matter and many people find it difficult to talk about mourning in the public space and even in their community. This exhibition was supposed to provide space and time to talk about mourning in the community with other people.
Many people, choosing the color of the yarn or other materials that they add to the memory balls, return to the events related to the passing of a loved one. For example, they can choose the colors of the setting sun because a loved one died at such a moment.
Many gestures and choices are related to grief that will not pass quickly, to joint plans that we will not implement, and to the multitude of feelings that are difficult to describe. What we cannot say or name appears in the gestures of cutting the yarn, in the choice of color, and in the attachment of butterflies and leaves. From our mournful emotions, a ball of memory is created in its entirety. (link to the video on how to create memory spheres:
The ways of commemorating the deceased are multidimensional and countless. I would love for Polish hospitals to start building a bereavement-friendly community ecosystem. It should not be that the family is so systemically isolated in the face of the death of a loved one in the hospital. If we don’t all belong to this bereavement-friendly ecosystem, then nothing will change.
It will be the same as it was with my mother. No voluntary information about the patient’s condition from the doctors. After death, passing condolences and things in the hallway. I wasn’t surprised. As a family, we are already used to such a system of operation. Of course, hospital staff also need support in creating a good ecosystem, especially for older patients, and their process of getting sick and passing away. Caring for such patients is difficult.
Without the involvement of all of us in building the mourning ecosystem in which we would like to live (sounds paradoxical), we will not see any change. I didn’t know my mom was dying. My body knew, but my mind didn’t. The conflicting information I was receiving caused me to urge my mother to eat and sit down for the last week.
I can’t forgive myself for that. I shouldn’t have done that already. This was not the time to force food and activity. It was dying time. The organizers of the aforementioned exhibition invited not only loved ones but also doctors, nurses, hospice workers, therapists, and art therapists, who were described as companions in mourning.
This group created their artistic works in the form of knitted butterflies that were hung around memory balls. They symbolically represented accompanying mourning and confirmed the presence of hospital staff in the process of illness, passing, but also mourning. We need a process that will lead to finding a new place in public space (in schools, in hospitals) for passing, death, and mourning.
We live in smaller and smaller families and we will have no one to talk to if we don’t take it outside and find a friendly grieving community there. May we also have such a hospital system that after the death of a loved one in the hospital and after making such a memory ball, we will gladly accept a knitted butterfly from the hospital staff and we will have the feeling that in this way we recreate the true image of a community that cares for each other.
May we also have such a hospital system that after the death of a loved one in the hospital and after making such a memory ball, we will gladly accept a knitted butterfly from the hospital staff and we will have the feeling that in this way we recreate the true image of a community that cares for each other. Each of us needs understanding and care in such moments.
We have to do a lot ourselves.
However, how much easier it is to go through difficult times by finding companions at the mournful stage of the earthly journey.
Yours M.
PS. You can read about that exhibition here:
https://www.lasalle.edu.sg/features/feature-witnessing-grief-through-art-therapy
