Cantus: The Silence of Grief

In Arvo Pärt’s Cantus, a composition for orchestra and Orthodox bells, silence is written into the music. There are times when no musicians are playing, yet in this silence we hear reverberations of the notes recently played. We hear them even though no one is playing.

So it is in grief after a loved one has died. We still hear their voices reverberating in our hearts. We see their shadows moving through our days, and feel brushes of their touch, even though their bodies are physically gone.

Being Creative with Grief

After being batted around by grief for a time, many of us want to take this raw energy, and our new clarity about reality, and be creative with it. We want to regain a measure of control over a force that has been tossing us around for months. I don’t play a musical instrument, paint, dance, weave, or create sculptures, but I do write, and I wrote down every memory, image, insight, and story of my life with Evelyn, and shaped some of them into essays and poems.

 

We take the remnants that grief leaves us, and sew them together in a patchwork quilt with the sinews of our heart.