The Artists’
Grief Deck

2019, the year that brought me to my knees. The year I entered a major depressive episode with which I am still struggling. Living and working with chronic illness was killing me... my body and brain...

This simple activity may help ease your transition. • Draw a portrait of your beloved departed • Rescue their handkerchief (or apron, or other cloth of theirs) • Make a Grief Doll and keep it un...

Write your cheer. Design your moves. Try it out!...

“Flowers in April” addresses the grieving process of losing a loved one and the search of closure. The owl in the painting represents silence of solitude to the people who passed away during the p...

Think about the feelings inside you that bubble up. Try to give them each their own name. How many feelings can you name? Once you name them, can you let them go?...

When I gather the fragments together, nothing makes sense. Everything is scattered and haphazard. But something may catch my eye, something accidental and unexpected. A color combination, a shape I ha...

Explaining how you feel to someone who has never experienced grief is a difficult process. Sometimes the English language does not have the words we need. Photograph yourself depicting what your feeli...

Find something that you think your loved one would have loved and love it for them. It doesn’t have to be anything special or perfect. Maybe it is a simple object in your home, outside in nature, or...

What you've lost is no longer with you, but your memories of it are. Hold them inside of you and keep them alive. Keep yourself alive. Breathe. Hold that breath in, let it go. In, and out, and in agai...

Bring your attention to your hands and simply touch the things around you. Be mindful of how these things feel, of how you experience their textures and vibrations through your fingertips. Touch your...

When you've lost someone, it can be very hard to ground yourself and accept that they're really gone. While it's absolutely fine to cry over someone you've lost, overdoing it isn't healthy. A great w...

My dad passed away a year before Covid hit and what made that time of isolation even harder was that I was also going through a really tough time dealing with his passing. As I was trying to get motiv...

I lost my Abuela to this pandemic. It's been months, yet I still cry all the time. She raised me. As someone whose primary love language is physical touch, the pain of not being able to touch her whil...

Go in front of the whitest wall in your house. Put your right cheek on the wall, it's like hearing the voice of the wall. Close your both eyes and think about baby hands- with all the details- chubby...

After my mother died, I had the urge to plant something, to watch something grow. It felt good to sink my hands into the earth, feel the soil sift through my fingers. It felt tangible. Plant a tree, a...

Regret may come with your grief. "If only", "I shouldn't have...", "I wish I..." The feeling of regret can be crushing but most emotions are here to serve you. Your regret tries to teach you what to d...

When I am going through a difficult phase I tend to bottle everything up. I used to think it was normal to do this and that it was a more efficient way of dealing with my feelings. Through doing this...

The outside must seem so scary, eh? I ask you to spare a minute or two to just stop whatever you are doing. Take this time for yourself. You are the culmination of your ancestors and their lived exper...

They say that smell is the strongest sense we have especially when it is attached to a memory. In India, I light up incense sticks that remind me of my religious grandmother doing pujas. It almost fee...