Years ago a counselor told me during a session I should “write my feelings.” When I told her I did not know what she meant, she looked straight at me for what seemed like minutes and said, “Molly, you write for a living! Write about your feelings!”

Now, most of the writing I have done in my professional life has been about technology and the graphic arts, and, truth be told, most of the time I stay more in my head than with my feelings. But, because of what she said I started writing about my feelings, and I can report it has helped me process them. I have tried journaling, writing fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and so forth. I have expanded the process in recent years to include using graphic design, photography, and now working with images mixed with video and music.

What I create from attempts to process my feelings, I do not normally share with others. I also do not normally share deeply personal content on this blog, so this post is an exception. During the last two years or so I have lost four people who meant a great deal to me. Two of them died after suffering protracted, punishing illnesses, one died from COVID-19, and one committed suicide.

Recently I created a brief video (see below) about losing my niece Renee. She died two years ago this month (COVID), but it is really about all of the loss. I have been trying to tell myself tremendous loss should teach us tremendous lessons. I am not sure that is always true, but I have included one such lesson in the video my personal losses over the last few years have taught me.

I know many of us have suffered loss in the past few years, many kinds of loss. Each day seems to bring more, right? If my post today helps any of you in any way, I am thankful and humbled. And, I thank you for watching my remembrance of Renee.

Update

Since I published this blog post I have created two other brief videos related to death and loss and published them on my Instagram account (@mollyjossoutloud). I have added those two videos to this post (see below). The last one I created using the AI tool inside Canva called Magic Media. I gave the AI a prompt to generate each image, each prompt was similar to the others. For example, to create the first one I said, “In the style of Gustav Klimt woman in bed with cat.”