Depictions of grief

While I'm working on this project, sometimes I come across works that make me feel so deeply that they need to be included. As I am dealing with people's internal lives, emotions come into play. Emotions which are difficult to carry alone.

Today I read a wonderful, painful, well-researched article by Kat Lister (2018), who has been dealing with the loss of her husband for the past few months. In it, Marie Curie bereavement co-ordinator Jacquie Leahman makes the statement "People are so keen to believe that time will heal, that one’s loss – which is so overwhelming and all-consuming at the beginning – will get smaller". She goes on to say that instead of loss and grief disappearing, life starts growing around it. After some time, grief can not and should not stop you from building a life for yourself. 
Thus, the idea that simply because it has been a while meaning something is no longer affecting you should be taken out of the process of grieving. Even after 50 years you can still have days where you get overwhelmed by it, those days just happen less often than in the beginning. 

I am still trying to decide if I should have a way to indicate the age of the 'giant' within my film, but as the above paragraphs indicate, trauma and grief are a part of everyday life for most who have experienced it. As such, I will need to do some work on my concept to see if this is something that fits. 

Another work that is inspiring me at the moment is the song 'Oh My God' from Adam Holmes and Rachel Sermanni.

The idea of loss being a part of life in a different way is interesting to me. The loss of a person giving someone the realisation that they will not live forever is something that I want to look into to see if I can incorporate this into the concept, perhaps through voice-over.

Bibliography:

Lister, K (2018) 'It is 52 days since my husband passed away. I am homesick for him', The Pool, Available at: https://www.the-pool.com/health/mind/2018/42/grief-loss-love-pat-long-and-kat-lister-forever/grief-loss-love-pat-long-and-kat-lister-forever (Accessed: 20 October 2018)