Seems like everything I do teaches me something more about grief and how ubiquitous it is in our everyday lives. This evening, I will be hosting a launch party and performance event, something I call “Performing the Book.” The Art of Grieving: How Art and Artmaking Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives, is my fourth book and having my improv playmates respond to what I read from it to help it come alive for a live audience is one of my favorite activities. But I notice as I work my way through my “To Do List” in preparation for tonight, I’m in and out of experiencing sadness and sorrow.
As you’ve probably experienced in planning a birthday party, a wedding, a ceremony to mark a milestone like a graduation or a retirement, not everyone we want attend will, in fact, is able to come. Sometimes this is because that special someone is no longer with us on this earthly plane. I think of my niece whose wedding day finally arrived after she was a bit past 40 years old. She shed tears, amid her joy, as she missed Grandma Pearl, who wasn’t able to outlast, what she called “those stupid men” who took so long to recognize what a good catch her granddaughter was. The wedding celebration included something I see quite often now, a time of honoring and calling out the names of those ancestors especially present in the hearts of those in attendance at these joy filled times.
My sorrow is not so much about missing those now on the other side. This book and this event to celebrate it is a way of honoring them. But May is a busy time, with graduations and weddings and the beginning of vacation excursions so that many people who have contributed to this book and to me while I was writing it, have their own important milestone events to attend in conflict with mine. So, we are doing what brides do for their special occasions–my filmmaker and videographer friend Mark, and Michael, the audio expert who is helping me with the audio version of the book will be putting together a video recording of the occasion to share with friends, past and future students, and the larger world.
There are special people I had counted on to support me through this milestone event but circumstances in their lives made their attendance impossible. My friend and InterPlay improv playmate LaVerne was called to the side of one of her best personal and work friends by a medical emergency that has LaVerne supporting her friend by covering for her on an out-of-town assignment. My longtime friend, retreat sister and co-author of my third book, Christine is in CO, in what grief advocates call “ceremonial time,” when past, present and future time merge into present time. She is exactly where she needs to be –at the bedside of her dying father. My sorrow lets me know that, although I cannot explain it, during what the Irish call, this “thin time, when the veil between the worlds is lifted,” part of me is there with her and she is here with me in Pennsylvania as well.
If you are geographically near Pittsburgh PA join us this evening at 7 pm eastern, for the in-person book launch at the Jewish Community Center 5738 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh 15217
