Over the last 9 months or so i started to work on my digital art again. what started as a few black and grey style flash pieces quickly turned to american traditional style pieces. since then i’ve branched out to portrait and landscape digital drawings. several hours committed to art pieces i was sure nobody would ever see.
from the age of 18 i worked on and off in funeral homes, learning as much as i could about death, dying, bereavement and what that looks like throughout different religions and/or cultures. while i was in the business to learn about death, it’s residual, and direct effects, i found myself learning more about me than i had anywhere else in life.
when i first started in death care, i had just turned 18, i had graduated from high school in June of 2016 and found myself enthralled and also overwhelmed with what very quickly became my world. when i say. i had to live, breathe and sleep death care, i mean nobody had a grip on me quite like the reaper himself. working well over 40 hours a week and going to university for a degree i was slowly being deterred from became so helpless and exhausting. my family and my mentor encouraged me endlessly to finish what i started, and for them, i will always be grateful as i'm sure, without them, i never would have finished university, nor would i have connected with art again or developed my passion for death care and advocating for the dying.
my passion is rooted in working in a close environment to the dying, dead and their families. throughout the few years i’ve been involved in such an industry, i have discovered that there are so many aspects to dying, the dying process and the grieving process that people dont even know where to begin when a loved one transitions from life to death. i have seen and heard so many heartbreaking stories over the last few years, many days leave me wondering 'is a lifetime of sadness what i was chasing all along? is this what i put myself into debt for?” however...many other days i find myself overjoyed with the care and dignity i get to provide to families in their darkest hours. personally, i believe that the lack of knowledge on bereavement, and death are even more unsettling than the funeral home setting. we never learn anything about taking care of a passing from start to finish, and we certainly don’t naturally come to understand how to cope with a loss like that ourselves. our system of trial and error throughout loved ones passings feels inhumane to me. government paperwork, expensive therapy fees, ambiguous grief, anticipatory grief, compassion fatigue. none of it is talked about enough and we are left to wonder if what we feel is “normal” or “right”. i’m here to reassure you, there is no correct way to grieve, make space and time for yourself, be gentle, speak of your loved one often to keep their memory alive.
i hope if you find yourself here, you use anything you learn to help someone else in need.
Love,
Jane Doe
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