How to Harness Creative Expression: Your Power Play Against Grief

Can creative expression help you heal? Learn ways it can, and ideas to get you started. Grieving sister and aging pet owner Sarah shares "How to Say Goodbye."  https://bit.ly/3Jn388H

Why Can Expressing Yourself Creatively Help with Grief?

When someone you love dies, the world doesn’t end, even though it feels like it should. When your grief feels too big to carry and too invisible to speak about, there’s something quietly revolutionary about picking up a pen, a paintbrush, a guitar, or a pair of scissors and trying to make something. Not because it fixes anything. But because it helps you survive.

How to Say Goodbye

We also have guest Sarah Walt Weaver, who lost her older sister share a short essay "How to Say Goodbye." Sarah has also found a creative outlet with her comic Adventures with Vrah which often deals with her experience of grief and the aftermath of her sister's death.

In this Episode:

• 00:22 - Ode to White Castle
• 04:20 - Road trip to Kansas, Home of White Castle
• 05:54 - How Creative Expression Can Help with Grief
• 09:06 - Not Artistic? Tips on How to Use AI Art Generation to Turn Raw Emotions into Visual Form
• 14:39 - How to Say Goodbye, by Sarah Walt Weaver
• 19:14 - Outro

Chapters

• 0:22 Ode to White Castle
• 4:20 Road trip to Kansas, Home of White Castle Hamburgers
• 5:54 How Creative Expression Can Help with Grief
• 9:06 Not Artistic? Tips on How to Use AI Art Generation to Turn Raw Emotions into Visual Form
• 14:39 How to Say Goodbye, by Sarah Walt Weaver
• 19:14 Outro

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies. This week we're talking about how imagination and creativity can help while grieving. Our podcast doesn't shy away from the difficult conversations surrounding serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 47 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every-person viewpoint to our podcast. We're both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions when a crisis hits.

Also, this podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. This podcast is a combination of education and entertainment, otherwise known as edutainment, delivered in three halves.

Our main topic is in the second half, so you can fast forward to that yak-free zone if you'd like. In the first half, Charlie has a piece about the home of White Castle and our recipe of the week. In the second half, we're going to explore how creative expression can help you grow while grieving.

And in the third half, Sarah Walt Weaver presents her essay, How to Say Goodbye. So, Charles, what's new? White Castles. Well, they're not really new.

I'm just thinking, do you remember the first time you had a White Castle? I have a very vivid memory. I was either four, maybe five years old, where in Detroit, where the great train depot is, on that corner on Michigan Avenue, there used to be a White Castle there. And I remember having White Castles there.

Again, four or five years old, that's my first memory of White Castles. What about you? Do you remember your first White Castle? You never forget your first, Charlie. Yes, that's true, though I'd like to.

That's a little more information than everyone needed to know. Well, I know my dad would, on very rare occasions, would pick them up after work and bring them home for dinner. And it was like the best dinner ever.

You know, my mother cooked every night, you know, those old days. Yes, yes. Homemade food again.

Really? Can't we just have White Castles? Yes, exactly. Yes. So, he would pick up that big bag of White Castles and, oh, the smell was wonderful.

I just thought the whole thing was wonderful because it was such a festive, you know, because like everybody was happy about dinner. And there were no vegetables involved, you know. Well, no, that's not true.

Think of a White Castle, it has the little onions. Those are vegetables. And, of course, the pickles.

Pickles are vegetables, right? Yes, pickles are vegetables. So, there we are. Oh, yes.

And I remember when I moved here to New York City, it was still transitioning from, you know, the wild 70s and 80s, slowly transitioning into what it has become. And there were several White Castles in Manhattan, and it was very cool. So, on Fifth Avenue, across from the Empire State Building and down two blocks, there was this White Castle, which I was shocked.

It's like, damn, this is Fifth Avenue, and there's a White Castle. Very cool. And eventually, they closed it because it just wasn't upscale enough.

I know, it's just, you know, what has become of us? I just don't know. So, with that in mind, in our first half, Everyone Dies travels to Kansas on our road trip this week. Kansas, the land of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, where scientists actually proved Kansas was definitely flatter than a pancake when they compared the terrain of Kansas against an IHOP pancake, where in years past, it was against the law to provide ice cream on top of cherry pie when served, and White Castle was the very first hamburger chain to be started in the U.S., our plan is to visit the largest ball of sisal twine, which is on display in Cawker City, and gorge on White Castle hamburgers.

Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe for White Castle hamburger pie and additional resources for this program. Everyone Dies is offered at no cost, but is not free to produce. Can we count on you to contribute? Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can remain accessible to everyone.

You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org or at our website on Patreon under Everyone Dies. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie. This week, Susan Peterson has submitted a blog to us called How Creative Expression Can Help You Live With Grief, and we welcome anyone who feels that they'd have something to say to send it to us, and we'd be happy to look it over and include it in our podcast.

There's this thing that happens after someone you love dies. The world doesn't end, even though it feels like it should. You're left standing in a grocery store aisle staring at applesauce or sitting at a red light while your heart pounds with the realization that they're really, truly gone, and no one else seems to notice.

And in those moments when your grief feels too big to carry and too invisible to speak aloud, there's something quietly revolutionary about picking up a pen, a paintbrush, a guitar, or a pair of scissors and trying to make something. Not because it fixes anything, but because it helps you survive. When grief hits, it doesn't ask permission.

It shows up in your chest, in your stomach, in the weird way your legs feel when you wake up. Talking can help, sure, but sometimes there are no words, or you're just too tired to explain. That's where creative expression becomes a kind of vessel, something that holds the feeling for you outside of your body.

Writing a letter to a person you lost, painting what you can't say, or even collaging photos into something chaotic and beautiful, it all gives grief a place to rest that isn't inside you. Grief is messy, it's unpredictable, and often leaves you feeling unmoored. But creativity, by its very nature, has rhythm and ritual.

Even if you're not an artist, even if you've never considered yourself creative, setting assigned time to make something gives you a tiny bit of structure in a world that's fallen apart. It could be ten minutes of free writing before bed, or a once-a-week watercolor session with a playlist that reminds you of them. Ritual doesn't erase grief.

It anchors it. Let's talk about the side of grief that doesn't get posted on sympathy cards. The anger.

At how unfair it was. At what was left unsaid. At the people who said the wrong thing, or said nothing at all.

That rage has to go somewhere, or it eats you alive. Creative outlets give you a way to scream without scaring the neighbors. Write a jagged poem, smash plates, and turd the shards into mosaic.

Let the ugly out, so it doesn't rot inside of you. When your grief feels too tangled for words, digital tools can offer a different kind of release, one that's visual, intuitive, and deeply personal. Platforms that let you sketch, animate, or design can become safe places to translate what's inside your chest into something outside your body.

If you're not sure where to start, use an AI art generator to turn raw emotion into visual form. Try this to work through emotions using text-to-image capabilities. Type in a simple description to generate an image, and customize it with whatever style suits you.

When you put your grief into art, whether it's a raw journal entry or a charcoal sketch, you're not just expressing yourself. You're opening the door for connection. Someone out there might read your words or see your photo and think, Me too.

That moment of shared understanding, even if it's with a stranger, makes the world feel a little less lonely. You start to realize that while your loss is uniquely yours, you're not alone in the losing. Grief changes you.

That's not up for debate. But creativity can help you figure out who you're becoming on the other side of that loss. Sometimes you uncover things that you didn't know were inside you.

Maybe a new passion. Maybe a way of thinking. Maybe a softness or a strength you didn't have before.

Creativity doesn't just help you process the past. It lets you meet the person you are now, in the aftermath. Grief can make you feel like the only thing that's left is pain.

But creativity can shift the lens. Through storytelling, photography, songwriting, or any kind of expression, you get to preserve the love that existed. Not just the moment it ended.

A hand-stitched quilt made from your dad's old shirts isn't just fabric. It's a memory you can hold. A short film with no dialogue might carry the cadence of the way they spoke.

You get to keep building that relationship, even if it looks different now. There's this weird cultural pressure to move on from grief, as if letting go of pain means you're also letting go of the person. But art reminds you that letting go doesn't have to mean forgetting.

You can let go of the sharpest edges, the breathless panic, and still keep the essence of who they were stitched into your life. Creativity is one of the only places where loss and joy can exist in the same frame. And that's not just healing.

That's honest. Grief doesn't follow rules. It doesn't show up clean or exit on a schedule.

But if you let it, creative expression can be your companion in that in-between space where everything feels undone. It won't cure the pain, but it will give it shape. And in that shaping, in that small, brave act of making something when everything feels broken, you might just find a way forward that's stitched together with color, breath, and memory.

Not a fix, but a beginning. Charlie, any thoughts? Yeah, many. Yeah, to your point, when Michael—and Michael is my son, and he died, well, he was killed about five years ago—I remember for me, without realizing it, because it happened during COVID, my way to express myself, to deal with my grief, was to sit in the sun.

And I was house-sitting at the time, this beautiful old—it was a former carriage house from the 1800s, which had massive windows. And I didn't realize I was just sitting there in the sunlight, just letting that sunlight, I don't know, soak me up. That's what it was for me.

I didn't do much writing, I didn't have many thoughts, but that was it for me. But I do know several people who, as you were saying, just writing—and I encourage people to do this—even just two or three sentences, maybe every day or every other day, and like what you were saying, Marianne, it doesn't need—you don't need to be Picasso or William Butler Yeats, just maybe one day you write the word, sucks. And then, I don't know, a couple of days, you suddenly realize you love pecan pie.

You're not sure why, but you love it, and that's the only thing you write for that day. It's just, yeah, just being able to express yourself. Yes, highly recommend it.

Yep. And for our third half, we are pleased to welcome Sarah Walt Weaver from Adventures with Ra, who is presenting her essay, How to Say Goodbye. This is Sarah Walt Weaver.

I'm recording this in a shared accommodation in Portugal, so please excuse any sounds of people walking or other background noises. This is my essay, How to Say Goodbye. My sister Melissa died over a decade ago in a plane crash.

She was 23 when she died. I was 21. After Melissa died, I began writing a webcomic called Adventures with Ra.

One of the first comics I wrote depicts a conversation with a friend. We were discussing the death of my friend's cousin. She died in the hospital, my friend said.

I was holding her hand. I remember thinking to myself, that is extremely sad, yet I am extremely jealous of you. In the early days after Melissa's death, I felt a huge amount of jealousy toward people who got to say goodbye to people they love.

I had wanted to hold my sister, protect her body, tell her it was going to be okay, even though that makes no sense. Melissa died thousands of miles away from me. I never saw her body.

I couldn't say goodbye. Before Melissa died, she adopted a cat named Snibbles. Snibbles lived with Melissa for around three years, then with my parents for the next 15.

We put Snibbles down a few months ago. Snibbles had been near the end for a while. She weighed three pounds.

She stopped eating, including her favorite snack, whipped cream. Snibbles wouldn't take her kidney or thyroid medication. She was often agitated and confused.

In between these weak moments, Snibbles would display sparks of determination. Staking her head under running water in the sink, but never taking a drink. Leaping toward the kitchen counter, but missing the ledge.

If she stuck the countertop landing, she beelined toward the kitchen knives. When I opened the freezer, she put her head in. When I loaded the dishwasher, she crawled in, hurrying to the back, willing me to close the door.

I said to my husband, the cat's looking for creative ways to kill herself. At the end of life, is the ability to scream and cry, to hold someone you love, a gift? Or is it just something that haunts you? With Snibbles, I watched her decline for years, then watched her die. I watched her get gray hair and cataracts.

With my sister, it was boom, dead. Weirdly, is it a good thing that I never saw Melissa dying or dead? In writer and journalist Dina Gashman's memoir, So Sorry for Your Loss, she talks about helpful and unhelpful condolences. When someone old dies, Gashman suggests that the words, they lived a long life, are unhelpful.

I've used those words before. Logically, everything dies. It feels lucky, is lucky, to have a long life.

As survivors, we find a way to feel gratitude for the time together. We find gratitude for the life of the people and things we love. We endure, perhaps even accept, their absence.

But, as a person who loved a cat who enjoyed a long life, I can understand why the condolence may hurt. I don't feel grateful for Snibbles' long life right now. Right now, it feels intolerable to say goodbye.

I really miss her. I wish she hadn't died. Right now, I'd much rather hear a funny story or talk about her fluffiness.

The morning we went in to put Snibbles down, the vet sat us comfortably in a back room. We had time to wait for my husband to come from work. The vet lit a candle and gave us a green blanket to put on our laps.

We each took a turn holding Snibbles. When my turn came, she didn't want to be held. She got up and splayed out on the cold floor.

My dad got down on the floor with her. I kept trying out words to say to Snibbles. My big, sweeping goodbye.

Thank you for taking care of Melissa. Thank you for taking care of my parents. It's going to be okay, Paquita.

One of my many nicknames for her. But the words sounded dumb coming out of my mouth. How could I possibly summarize what she means to me right this second? Snibbles used to respond to me by flicking her tail or saying, Markow, her version of meow, or nodding her head.

This time, nothing. This is it? This is goodbye? As my dad held Snibbles' paw, the vet gave the shot. Thank you, Sarah.

And we offer condolences to your family for Snibbles' death. Please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies. And thank you for listening.

This is Charlie Naporette. And from Sarah Walt Weaver, 15 years after her death in a plane crash, I hope my sister can feel the depth of my admiration. And I'm Marian Matzo, and we'll see you next week.

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