The Remembering Room is Closed: How Grief Brought Us Joy
It’s been a little over a month since The Remembering Room exhibit closed, and I’ve spent that time reflecting, writing, carrying my son close, wandering the woods and the mountains, and reminding myself that it’s time to move forward. It’s time to seek joy. It’s time to unfurl, renewed.
Here’s what I know.
Joy doesn’t come naturally to us all. It feels like a nebulous term most of the time. But when joy comes, it comes in little pieces, and those pieces are dense enough to fill you up when grief and sadness inevitably seep back into your heart. Joy is a buoy. Joy isn’t a gift. It is a miracle. A moment. A lesson. And it is earned with our attention. Joy must be sought out. Grief and darkness give us the lessons and the fortitude we need to seek out the light. Maybe this is the journey—the point of it all.
Everyone is grieving, and it looks exactly the same and completely different for each of us all at once. We march in silent solidarity through the tumult of our grief—wading through time and against waves of loss. We all feel it deeply. The way time is ripping away the ones we love, who we thought we were, what we wanted, but we don’t say much to one another about it, and it makes it feel bigger than it is. I’ve watched a lot of people from a lot of places walk into a single building and up to a single wall and face their grief, write it out for everyone to see, and walk away with it in their hands instead of on top of their hearts. I’ve watched them get lighter. I’ve made myself lighter. And the lesson has resoundingly been to share your grief. Get it out of your body. Own it. Wield it. It is yours, and you are not its.
Grief is a thing of love. Great and complicated. And I am grateful for it. And through this grief experience, I crossed paths with so many incredible people who met me right where I was with vulnerability and hurt and hope and support and art and love and frustration and everything in between that a person can feel, and it meant something. It meant so much more than small talk or pleasantries ever could. It was connection in the wake of emptiness. It was purpose. It was moments of joy. And it showed me how we’re meant to be.
I know nothing and no one can ever replace the ones I’ve lost, and I know I can always hold space for them. I don’t need to let them go. I can feel whatever I need to feel for them and however that looks is always okay. I can do all of this while also honoring them by making new space for each of you and for this next phase of my life.
Thank you all for sitting beside me in The Remembering Room.
If you were unable to explore the exhibit in person, you can read about it at the links below and you can find more information on my website HERE.
Public Source essay: ‘We are held.’ At the end of a grief-shadowed pregnancy, an echo, then a life.
Pittsburgh Magazine: How A Pittsburgh Artist Demonstrates ‘Growth Through Grief’
TRIB LIVE: Baldwin artis plans installment in Sharpsburg to address coping with grief
James Protin Podcast: Amanda Filippelli uses Creativity to Cope with Grief
The Bunker Review: The Remembering Room: Impossible Life Cycles