I joined a writers group called "A Year to Love" with Ahava Shira before Robin had died. This was a very fortuitous move as writing through my grieving process has proven to be very therapeutic for me. Plus at the end of our year, we all put on an art show together showing all our different emotional explorations of the year through different mediums.
My show consisted of a very large portrait of Robin done by Julia Lucich and a cluster of very small portraits of myself to show the contrast of how I felt compared to him. I wrote:
In January 2014 my husband Robin Gibbard passed away suddenly. Instantly my life changed. How I defined myself went from loving wife to widow. Robin had a huge presence due to his larger then life personality. I have always felt very small next to him and rather insignificant as most people on Salt Spring know me as Robin's wife. In this last year I have spent much time and internal exploration redefining who I am and how to move through this process of grief and being a widow.
Plus I created this video.
Doing this art show really pushed me to explore and express how I am feeling and in return is pushing me through this process of grief. It was exhausting emotionally doing this but now that it is over I feel the rewards of the pressure. I am able to step back a bit to see my life from a different perspective and move past the sadness.
I sometimes feel like I am charging through this process like a bull and then in the same moment feel like I am stuck in a hole with no hope of getting out. It really does feel bizarre and as much support and love that I have around me it feels like a very solitary journey. But through it all I know I am loved by many and that I was very loved by this crazy man.
And I will continue to write!
