The Space Grief Asks for 2024

Oil on Cardboard 64 cm × 90 cm

He wasn’t my husband, so I didn’t get to be called a widow. There’s no category for the girlfriend who lost her person, and I learned that people get overwhelmed by grief that doesn’t come with clear instructions.

How rarely we face the raw reality of death. How much we outsource it, sanitize it, avoid it. We’ve moved away from religion, but we haven’t figured out what to put in its place. Where do we go to lay things down when we have no church, no shared script, no mourning clothes?

We don't talk enough about what grief needs. I don’t mean sympathy, I mean structure. A story that tells you you’re not crazy for feeling like the world should have paused, then gone down in flames.