Photo diary: FACES OF (MY) GRIEF (Part 1)
I WAS SPEECHLESS, and I STILL AM.
Emotions in pictures, as self-awareness, as self-portrait
By: h. nazan ışık—
24 December 2022—
This article is about GRIEF.
What is grief? According to the Cleveland Clinic “Grief is the experience of coping with loss.”
I am sure Grief has many faces: What’s worse, losing a child, or losing a spouse, or losing parents, or siblings?
Is grief from losing a loved one or ones in war the same as losing one after an illness?
GRIEF has a lot of faces.
I can only speak about my grief; my feelings, my emotions, my pain.
This article, a combination of words and photos of objects represent my feelings as “self-portraits”
That’s why I named this article as “FACES of (MY) GRIEF”.
It was 2019, my one and only brother called me from Turkey: “Sister I have been diagnosed with cancer, Pancreatic cancer it is.”
It sounded like a sudden thunderstorm.
I was, I was shocked, I was speechless. I couldn’t ask which stage it was. According to the Cleveland Clinic “Pancreatic cancer survival rates are low because the disease is difficult to detect in the early stages”
I saw my face in a mirror on the wall, it wasn’t my face I saw. It was something like this.
I was shocked, I was speechless!
I cried.
I went to Turkey to be with him.
While we were approaching Istanbul airport,
I saw rain drops on the window. The sky was crying with me.
He had a surgery, The Whipple procedure. The Whipple procedure is the primary surgical treatment for pancreatic cancer ((Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center). And the tumor was removed. Chemotherapy started.
Doctors were happy and hopeful.
However, a red flag was always there.
I came back to New York.
The Bad News.
The bad news came. Cancer spread to the liver, metastasis!
I cried again.
I wanted to go back to Turkey to be with him. I couldn’t, because of Covid-19. In January 2020, the contagious disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
I was stuck, I was the prisoner of Covid-19. Couldn’t go. I screamed in agony.
On 24 December 2020, I received a phone call that my brother died. I couldn’t see him. He was buried on his Birthday, 26 December 2020.
I NEEDED A SHOULDER to CRY ON, A (NEW ) SHOULDER to CRY ON
It was 1994. My mother and father both died of heart attacks, 6 months apart from each other. I wasn’t there. I started writing about my feelings. It wasn’t enough, so I started photography. It became my tool, expressing my feelings not with words but images as a visual writing.
But at that time I had a shoulder to cry on as well, my brother’s shoulder. We called each other very often, talked, cried, laughed, shared memories.
Now, my brother is dead too. My comfort shoulder is gone too. But my desire to communicate with him was still alive. The first thing I did was to send him a message via WhatsAp.
I CAN’T DiGEST IT ……
“ My dearest brother,
My pain is so great. My heart is burning, as if there is a volcano ready to explore. There is a fire burning in me. My pain is so great!
It gets bigger as the hours pass. It goes deeper and deeper…
I couldn’t understand what happened, I couldn’t register that you died. I couldn’t digest it yet. I still wish to hear from you my dear
Forgive me, I don’t want to bother you…
You are now comfortable, pain-free, fear-free, anxiety-free, right?
I am sure mom and dad are waiting for you to hug you with love.
Today is your Birthday, Mom is ready to hug you with love, like a new born baby.
Please give them my regards, my love and tell them how much I missed them.
I embrace you with love, my dear brother.
Your sister. “
And I wrote many, many more letters to him.
Did I expect any replies as it used to be? No,, but it would have been nice.
I needed a new shoulder. I had shoulders of friends, some relatives, but weren’t the same as my brother’s.
Photography again, became my intimate best friend, a strong shoulder to cry on.
What I felt was severe coldness…everything, every organ in my body was frozen. My brain, my blood, my heart.
The pain I felt was tremendous, like a rusty, not a sharp one, but a very rusty metal , very slowly piercing my brain, my heart, my lungs, my spine. I was bleeding inside.
Hopelessness, sadness, pain, agony, despair, feeling a terrible sense of loss. This was how I felt my face looked..
.
I cried more…
Crying has faces too.
From outside it may look calm, like rain drops.
But inside it feels like a hurricane
I cried to the point… that I couldn’t cry anymore
This picture, taken in the late 1970’s, breaks my heart the most.
I was on a bus going somewhere, my mom, my brother and my dad were wishing me a joyful trip.
And now it looks like they were saying good-bye to me.
The last “Farewell” it feels like. And sadly they ARE all gone!
My heart became like a stone. Senselessness, numbness filled my heart.
.
There is a saying: “Time is the best medicine”.
It is just a saying! I lost my mom and dad 27 years ago, and I still hear their voices… And my brother passed away 2 years ago, but he is still with me.
It has been a very difficult time. I’ll see how 2023 will be.
Photographs © h. nazan ışık
© h. nazan ışık / NKENdikEN