Writing My Way through Grief

Our guest blogger for today, Lou Ann Stewart, traces the history of her writing back to a high-school essay contest. Lou Ann has found that writing about her losses has helped her through grief:

My meditation published in The Upper Room Magazine for February 3, 2012 tells about a dear friend who died. Last Sunday, a woman sat next to me in church and told me she had read ahead in The Upper Room.  She wanted to know if the friend I wrote about in my meditation was a dear mutual friend who had died in June, 2011.  My answer was, "No, but it could have been written about her."  The meditation had been written about two years earlier, and the friend I wrote about was in a facility close to the school where I taught.  My daily visits happened after school had been dismissed for the day.  My mother, also mentioned in the meditation, has died.  Our daughter, who made the mosaic mentioned in the meditation and gave it to her grandmother, died as the result of a car accident. 

I have found that writing helps me deal with the grief of missing loved ones.  A story I wrote about my daughter was published by Guideposts in their “angel” magazine, and the same story was published on-line in September 2011 as one of Guideposts' daily devotions.  Several of my poems are in poetry books, and one special poem that I wrote while standing on the beach of Waikiki, in Hawaii, was set to music.  It will be sung by the chamber choir and accompanied by the chamber orchestra of Dennison University in Ohio on Feb. 12, 2012.

I continue to write family stories.  Many were written while I belonged to a writing group formed my pastor.  We met every month for four years, at a local bookstore.  Each time we met, one member of the group read a creative piece, and then it was critiqued by the other members.  What an experience!  Many of the stories I’ve mentioned here, along with my poems and meditations, are going to be published (as soon as I get it all together) for my family.  I hope the book will be enjoyed by relatives for years to come, when I no longer live on planet Earth.

I am a retired teacher and live with my husband of 52 years.  We have lived in the same house for 42 of those years.  We recently adopted a snowshoe manx kitten from the animal shelter and named her Lucy.  She doesn't lack for affection.  We have a married son and grandsons who live close to us. I am a community volunteer; I’m also active in Bible Study Fellowship, my church, a professional sorority, and a book club.  

Many, many years ago, when I was a high-school senior, I won a state-wide essay contest sponsored by the United Nations.  The scholarship that came with the win helped me become a teacher; but until I retired, I had mostly written only report-card comments.

Thank you to the editors of The Upper Room magazine for publishing what I wrote. Writing meditations is a way to share my faith.*

 -- Lou Ann Stewart

*We invite all our readers to write and submit meditations to be considered for possible use in The Upper Room. You can read our writer guidelines and frequently asked questions about writing for us at http://www.upperroom.org/about/writer-guidelines/upper-room.