In the film The Hunger Games, based on the book by Suzanne Collins, there is a very tender scene after one of the younger tributes (Rue) is fatally injured. Katniss, our 17 year old heroine, has formed an alliance with her and is devastated by her death.
Even though she is fighting for her own survival, Katniss takes the time and energy to honor her loss, and to honor Rue. She clears a small plot of land and covers it with sweet grass and flowers. She lays Rue down, tenderly straighens her hair, carefully folds her hands on her stomach, and scatters flowers over her body. She sings her a lullaby.
This scene reminds me, again and again, of how powerful it is for our own grieving process, to offer some kind of ritual or ceremony, however small, to honor the life of someone (human or animal) we have lost.
Those of us with cancer may be facing or may have already faced more loss than others. We may become friends with others who are on the same journey, and we may lose some of them to the disease. It is never easy to lose a loved one, whatever the reason. The important thing is that we take some time to honor our loss, to honor their lives.
The modern-day funeral is one such way that we can honor a loved one’s loss. But what if we can’t go to the funeral because we ourselves are not feeling well from treatment or recovering from a surgery? In 2011 when I was
undergoing multiple invasive tests to determine what was wrong with me, my dear friend Lis died from a rare kind of cancer that she’d been fighting for 3 years. I couldn’t go to the wake or to the funeral and that made me even sadder than I already was. I was feeling unwell and fearful of my own diagnosis.
What did I do? I made Lis a SoulCollage® card that honored her life and our friendship. I gathered images that reminded me of her essence (and a photo of her as well, in her choir robes) and glued them together on a mat board measuring 5×8.
I set the card by my bed so I could see it often. I wrote out several dialogs with Lis in my journal. I put my hand over my heart whenever I thought of her. I said good-bye to her in my imagination, but it felt very real to me. It felt like I was truly communicating with her even though she was gone to Spirit.
In this way, I honored my grief, my loss. I honored Lis’s life and I honored our friendship. How can YOU honor the life of a loved one YOU have recently lost?
I have walked the cancer journey with my daughter at age 29, then with my husband in the last 2 years. I have done the medical charting of our family relative to cancer occurrence, mostly starting in the 60’s. Mother, father and both maternal grandmothers succumbed to cancer.
So I feel like I can stare it in the face and keep faith that we are blessed and protected. All in God’s will. So every day is victorious, life is beautiful.
My SC card for my daughter is called Courage because she is an overcomer. My husband’s SC card is about Lovers, our relationship, companionship, his integrity, and our love of music and dancing. I made a SC card about Cancer, portraying a thief, masked bandit. It was a helpful way to vent anger about how vicious cancer can be. And shake my fist at it.