Grief is a universal human experience, but it makes many people uncomfortable. We can suppress its expression in ourselves fear being too messy; we may avoid discussing the loss of others because we “don’t know what to say.” Writing can be a powerful tool When it comes to expressing and processing painful emotions, reading stories that openly deal with taboo subjects can increase our empathy for difficult subjects and provide comfort.
New York Times bestselling author Emily Rapp Black has released her new book about grief and creativity, If I Were You, I’d Die: Notes on Art and Truth Tellingas “a book for sad and funny people”. The title suggests that Rap Black, who grew up with a prosthetic leg and whose young son died of Ty Sachs in 2014, often encounters people who, instead of sitting with their discomfort that loss, grief, and disability happen to most of us over time, can “otherize” him as the tragedy of their own lives.
Rapp Black, 51, a professor, avid traveler and mother of a 12-year-old daughter, rejects such a reductive lens, instead celebrating the power of storytelling and genuine empathy. Take out everything from philosophy In his new book The Bible to Popular Culture, Rapp Black explores how people have made art out of suffering for centuries, and the deep human truth that adversity doesn’t preclude creativity, joy, nuance, and “fun.”
I was privileged to be able to dive into some of Rapp Black’s thoughts in this interview.
Gina Frangello: You also have a Masters of Divinity from Harvard and have studied theology and philosophy extensively. Where do you think we are right now as a culture in terms of how we process and understand grief? Have we come a long way, or has it been the other way around?
Emily Rapp Black: I think it’s more in our faces, if you will, because we see countries being bombed, people being shot, being terrorized, choosing everything on television, on the news, on any screen. And yet all of us, perhaps because some of this comes to us in a constant but controlled way or in a way that we think we can control (turn on the TV, turn the radio dial, etc.) and of course, we can’t. Thinking we can is what separates us from grief the most; this is a big step backwards. We may be very sad, we may even cry angerbut then we quickly move on to whatever comes next – what ad, what meeting, what program.
Grief itself is a long journey, helicopter speed one moment and then through a foggy swamp the next, and in all kinds of emotional weather. In order to stay with the other person in that process, a strong witness is needed, someone who can sit in the grief and bear with the grieving. Our closest friends and family can do it, or want to or try, or the books or stories we go back to, write or discover, but culture doesn’t do it for us in any way outside of the strict dogmatic restrictions imposed by organized religions or other groups – or at least that’s been my experience. I think we’ve lost the ability to hold an experience that we can’t click on and you can’t get away from grief. This is simply not possible in the long run.
GF: You discuss how writing absolutely saved your life when your son Ronan died. How might you recommend that someone who has never been a writer begin to practice creativity as a means of coping with grief or other difficult life stages?
ERB: Since the beginning of time, recorded or otherwise, people have tried to make sense of the chaos of their lives. There is a famous Sumerian saying: “Destiny is like a wet beach, sooner or later you will slip away.” Grief is the perfect time to start a creative experiment of any kind, because you should lead with vulnerability, not ego, or hoping people will like you, or even creating something will solve the situation.
Some situations are insurmountable, but creating stories or art or music in the middle of that storm, when the stakes are high and the emotions are even higher, can help you get through it. Is it confusing? Maybe. Fighting mechanism? Of course. But it is also a source of deep comfort, almost primal, because it connects us to being human in a way that nothing else can.
Here’s a generative exercise I give often: Think of five things should tell so that your story makes sense or is told fully. Then, take those five things—those moments or experiences—one at a time and try to remember every sensitive or specific detail about them. We do not grieve with wisdom; we feel it in our body. So we have to connect with our embodied emotions, our embodied selves, to write these memories, and that’s a beautiful meaning. attention to the senses.
GF: Are there stories that you’ve reworked and reworked in your writing over time that you originally handled differently?
ERB: My son died over ten years ago, and while I can still access that raw grief and sense of loss to the world, I can also see how remembering him—writing and thinking about him—is a way. parents beyond the grave, from continuing to relate to him after his death.
GF: In your epilogue, you discuss writing as an act of service. Can you talk more about that, especially for those who might feel that their writing is important or contributing something in troubled times—not just in the face of great personal loss, but, for example, in the midst of a pandemic or war?
ERB: People need stories—real or fictional—that reflect the emotional intensity of their experiences. Reading increases our empathy, makes us feel less alone, and makes us realize that we are part of a larger conversation across time and history, language and culture. Reading under pressure is so much more powerful because it’s so much more important to feel accompanied, to feel as if someone is witnessing the truth of life’s experience, and by reading that story, you become a part of it.
For further study of these topics with Emily Rapp Black, her other books include Poster Child, The turning point of the world, Shelterand Frida Kahlo and my left foot.
