Photo diary: FACES OF (MY) GRIEF (Part 2)

I WAS SPEECHLES , BUT…..

Emotions in pictures, as self-awareness , self-portrait

DOES GRIEF CHANGE?

DOES OVER TIME CREATE NEW FACES OF GRIEF?

By h. nazan ışık—

24 December 2023–

What is grief? According to Oxford Dictionaries “Grief is a very sad feeling, especially when somebody dies. It is something that makes you feel very sad.”

My one and only brother died on 24 December 2020, and was buried on his birthday 26 December 2020.

I was very sad. I wrote about my feelings every day, religiously. But writing wasn’t enough.

In 2022 I decided to write my feelings in a Photo Diary

DOES GRIEF CHANGE?

DOES OVER TIME CREATE NEW FACES OF GRIEF?

There is a saying: Time is the best medicine.

Maybe it is. Grief changes over time. At least it is in my case.

My heart is not a solid stone anymore, as it was in 2022, It is softer now.

My first reaction to my brother’s death was disbelief. That I couldn’t understand what happened, I couldn’t register my brother’s death. I couldn’t digest it for some time.

And later anger came. I was in NY, he was in Turkey. There was an issue that needed to be worked on. Much later I found out the result wasn’t to my liking. I was hurt and angry but he died before we resolved it. Even my anger has chanced, Now I am angry that I could’t figure out what made him to make that decision without discussing with me. Oh well…!

I am imagining revenge: depending on the root cause of grief it may turn to revenge. I never had that feeling. My loved ones died of heart attacks and cancer. No one to blame!.

Imagine you are a parent of a child or children killed in a school shooting.

Imagine your loved ones died in war.

This is how I would feel to find the killer.

And of course missing and longing feelings never leave you alone. Holidays, birthdays, even places we went, food we shared, memories always remind us of our loved ones.

When I remember good moments my heart feels happy.

I see things that are beautiful, bright and colourful. It makes me smile.

But we don’t always have very happy events, laughs, or words to remember.

Sometimes we feel regrets, small or big ones.

I have some small ones that I might have hurt some people, and especially my mom and dad. I know they are not very important, but it hurts me to think about them.

But I have one big one: An offer that I hadn’t accepted in my early years which affected my future in a negative way, and I realized later that it hurt my parents a lot as well.