My Journey With Health And Fitness – Finding Comfort

I went out for a run this morning and saw the strangest thing. It was around 6am so it was still dark out but running along the promenade was a mallard drake. The fact he was on the promenade isn’t odd, it was the way he was walking. He was actually standing upright, almost like he was a human. When I was heading back home there was a group of people watching him because an hour after I first saw him there he was still walking around upright. It was truly a bizarre thing to see.

Yesterday I decided to completely break out of my comfort zone and try something new. I attended a session called Grief Through Creativity. They had already had one session but I was still in Mexico so had to miss that one. This one was making a mosaic which did concern me a bit because I am not artistic in any way but I have struggled the last year and a half to come to turns with the loss of my brother. While I am not great at sharing emotions with others, I thought this might be what I have been looking for and it turns out is was.

I want to start by talking about the interesting dynamic of the group that was there, 4 of us in total. At my table was an older woman who is in my walking group and has become a good friend. She lost her husband last year days before I lost my brother. At the other table was an older woman who lost her husband in July. The other woman was probably in her 40’s and she lost her sister, also in July. Why those dynamics mattered so much is 2 of us are well into the cycle of grief while the others are still new to it. On top of that you have the difference of losing a spouse and losing a sibling. I thought it was just the perfect group of people to get together.

For the mosaic, you selected a piece of colouful, patterned paper and a piece of plain paper. Next you mindfully tore the coloured paper in to whatever shapes and sizes that you liked. You then glued the pieces on the plain paper to start to tell a story. Finally you added layers of colour by using 2 different coloured felt pens, 1 a colour you liked 1 you didn’t. Then optionally you could add some coloured sparkle glue. Once everything was done you would explain what you created and relate it to the person you lost.

For the coloured paper I chose one that was light brown with a bright green stripe at the top. It drew me because it made me think of the beach in Playa, a place my brother loved. I ripped it into various shapes and sizes that I glued to the plain paper. I selected a blue felt pen and just added lines between all the shapes. I had chosen a really ugly yellow/green coloured felt pen that I used to mark some of the edges of the paper. Finally I used some black sparkle glue which I used to create dots in between the shapes.

It was odd but each step of the process I realized I was creating a piece that really represented my brother. The brown shapes, they represented stepping stones for the hard journey he had in life between learning disabilities, bullying and health issues. The blue was almost an identical match to his stunning cornflower blue eyes. The yellow/green colour represented the sargassum seaweed that we hated. Finally, those little black dots represented all the barriers that he struggled to overcome and I used sparkle glue because he overcame all of them.

I fully admit there were tears shed as I explained my mosaic but when I walked out I felt better than I had in a while. The sharing and support that happened in that room reminded me that I am not alone on this journey and that sharing those emotions with others who understand is a healthy release. Truly I look forward to the session next month.