Writing as a path to healing

Since Friday, I, like many people around the world, have experienced an array of emotions–grief, anguish, anger, and compassion, among others.

I originally began writing because I wanted to tell people’s stories. My mother developed sudden onset dementia and writing was my way to try to understand it. As I saw my mother regress before my eyes, writing about it and talking about it helped me process my grief and my sadness.

At first, my mother would forget daily events–she’d ask for lunch when she’d just eaten or she couldn’t remember the name of her husband. Then events and memories from a year before began to fade, and then the years before that followed. It was like watching somebody’s life being erased before my eyes.

Sometime during this process, I realized that we are all a collection of stories. That we all have more than one story to tell. We’re really a series of stories–who we are, who we love, how we touch the world, what we do for others.

I was lucky because I had time to say goodbye to my mother. Hers was a gradual leaving. The community of Newtown, Conn., didn’t have the blessing of time. Their loved ones were taken suddenly and tragically.

We can help honor the lives of those heroic teachers and the beautiful children who were taken too soon by remembering and sharing their stories. By writing about them and talking about them. By letting their spark light our own.

Join in the discussion. Like their Facebook pages. Send a note or card to the first responders. Do what you can to share their stories. Hug your children. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Do what you can to help heal the world. This is not just about a small town in Connecticut. This is about all of us.

Remember the children and their teachers: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/15/us/connecticut-shooting-victims/index.html

Send a card to the first responders:

Newtown Police Department
3 Main Street
Newtown, CT 06470