Grief

I’m currently dealing with the hardest year of my life. Death and grieving have always interested me. I’m a nurse and have also explored the concepts when I was in arts school…“but it really hit home this year to understand how different it is when you’re going through it yourself..."

My brother died. Telling my mom the news was heartbreaking. His funeral in Beijing was quite different from my own culture. As a nurse I am confronted with mortality all the time. Still, I’ve not always taken the best care of myself.  After Brian died I wondered “did he have to die for me to learn to take better care?” So many feelings of desperate sadness, guilt and anger. It has all made me see the medical system from another angle… having interventions done to you, even though as a medical professional we feel that we are giving as much care and compassion as possible. It’s still different from the other side.

I wish the tradition of wearing a black band around your arm to signify grief would come back. That way we would know to be more gentle with each other…as everyone is going through something at some point.

"Life is so fragile yet so strong…wouldn’t it be nice is we were all just more gentle with each other.”