A Reflection on Personal Writing and Healing

It amazes me sometimes the way that things can happen quickly. In real life, of course, change is slow. I sometimes doubt that there are causes that lead to effects so immediately as they do in the movies or in certain novels. I doubt that in real life I have much efficacy. But then something happens to change all of that.

Here's what happened, and it started, most surprisingly, with my writing. I wrote my monthly newsletter and sent it out to people who still want to hear from me. About a week later, one of my readers--a colleague with whom I worked and taught writing--emailed me about my newsletter.

I had written about how writing had been part of my healing after losing my son. I included in my newsletter a poem. I've been writing poems lately, and they've been finding readers.

My friend invited me, on the strength of my newsletter, to talk with him on his podcast about how a certain kind of writing can lead to healing. He was talking especially about personal, expressive writing, the kind of writing we do for ourselves, not expository or argumentative writing.

His questions became quite specific, and I attempted to answer them, but not according to any plan. It turned out, though, that I was fitting into research he has been doing on the subject. He asked me if I had noticed any difference in the nature of my grief after writing.

And I had. I had written all sorts of unplanned things over the last 15 months--poems, journal entries addressed directly to my son, accounts of things that people had said, reflections for no one else, thoughts about God.

The podcast can be accessed here if you would like. 

This is something that I have found I had to do. After our loss, I retreated to writing, to carrying a single notebook set aside for the purpose with me just about everywhere. I even chose the notebook based on our son. At one time in high school, he wore red t-shirts every day. Plain red t-shirts. The notebook I used was plain red, with no words on the cover. I took it to work. I kept it at home. I took it with me when we vacationed in Hawaii.

I've written in it less now. I've written just one entry in three months. But it served its purpose. I have passed through the shock and sadness and am somewhere else now. I am trying to write something more formal, and I am drawing on what I wrote down during those hellish months.

Writing is not what most of us think it is. In high school, so many students are alienated from it because of the way it is taught. We prefer technology now. But my android phone and my laptop would not have served me well as the small, red covered notebook has over the last year.