Letters to Forever
The artist reflects on a series of letters she received from strangers, opening a conversation about the individuality of grief and how the internal chaos can be externalised through words
words & photography – natalia millman
location – hertfordshire, uk
When the purest darkness wraps around me and the thorns of guilt brush on my skin, I remember a spider settling to observe the fragmentation of my being through a portal of loss. Like a glass – half full or empty – smashed on the hardest ever floor, my soul and the container holding it crash into many little pieces, tangled in the silvery, deceitfully fragile web of grief.
My father’s death with dementia in 2019 split my life in two: pre and post. How quickly my life has become another life. My heart wanted to escape with a constant urge to run and run through the thick thistle, scarring me; except I did not feel the pain. I was unaware of the magnitude of grief and how powerful it is. It seethed into my life uninvited, wrapped its tentacles around my heart and announced its long-term residency.
The neuroscience of grief confirms that it affects the parts of the brain that trigger motivation. Since the search for the loved one is unachievable, but the love for them is so present, I try to solve the problem of walking in two worlds. The dimensions of time, place and attachment no longer apply. These intense, unwilling emotions motivate me to help myself, to repair myself when I search in vain.
Only now, four years later, do I realise that this was my brain being rewired, this was my grief being learned
And so I spent a year in my studio collecting broken parts of organic and non-organic matter and reassembling them into new shapes, assigning them new meanings. Only now, four years later, do I realise that this was my brain being rewired, this was my grief being learned, this was me trying to understand what my father felt when dementia absorbed him. I brought my own grief into a public space, opening a call for people to share their grief stories in the form of a letter. Unaware of what the result of this open call would be, I was driven to unveil the mystery of grief. How does yours look? What would it say? How are you carrying it through your own existence?
The letters started arriving – some handwritten, some typed – dripping with rawness of emotion, stories of anger, deceit, enormous love, heavy guilt. The authors wanted to be heard. This is how my project, ‘Letters to Forever,’ was born. The internal chaos externalised through words.
Grief was described in various ways in the 215 letters I received over three years from strangers. For some, grief was a word swept under a carpet; for others, it was a gaping hole or dumb unseeing. Some letters described grief as something embodied, alive: Grief tapped me on my shoulder gently at first, but with growing urgency. This somatic experience resonates with my own grief, which manifests in tightness in some parts of my body, the blockage of my throat chakra. For this project, I created a number of full-size drawings representing grief embodiment.
And although the nature of everyone’s grief is different, it is universal and unavoidable.
The core of ‘Letters to Forever’ is the letters: the true stories of grief. I channel them slowly, one by one, responding to words with the help of visualisation and intuitive drawing. The heavy layers of loss make life translucently thin, and the surface I use reflects this: see-through rice, glassine and tracing paper. My marks are often made with my eyes closed, using ink and sticks; I rarely use a brush, as if deliberately eliminating the barrier between my hand and the surface. I often use my hands to spread the buttery oil stick pigment across the paper. This creates imperfect, unexpected results. For me, the goal is not to create a finished, elaborate piece but to experience the process of making, deliberately highlighting the imperfections [of the nature of grief], hearing the words as echoes in my mind, connecting as closely as I can to the emotional state of a writer; to try to feel their feelings.
And although the nature of everyone’s grief is different, it is universal and unavoidable. By immersing myself into other people’s stories, I can see my own grief more clearly. I quietly create a powerful and immersive environment, arranging these letters and my drawings into the installation. It is a cube structure with translucent walls, surrounding me, containing me with the whispers of the voices that letters radiate. By immersing myself into this project, I acknowledge my own grief and the love that is locked in my epigenetics: the changed me.
I am finally reassured that grief is not linear. It comes in waves. Just like in ‘In The Palm of Spider’s Hand,’ there are days that can be a real struggle, yet there is a bird gracefully riding the breeze. To notice it amidst the shadows is to reorient our loss, as neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor describes. One of the letters reassures: You will smile again. One day you will go to bed without realising that you haven’t cried for 24 hours. Then there will be two. One day you will think of something other than grief. Until that day, take it an hour and a day at a time.
Many letters I received highlight post-traumatic growth: Your death changed me. It made me live. Every step of my journey since your death has been a growth experience. I now have a true understanding of living day to day, moment to moment.
I believe people are naturally empathetic creatures. We live in a society guided by culture and based on rituals. Our own vulnerability can be a magnet for people; if only we are brave enough to show a glimpse of it. The letters I received are a testament to the courage and patience of their writers, who consciously took time to sit with their own grief and attempt to put it into words.
As one of Gerald’s poems describes: You are my guiding light, who keeps me strong. In grief, we are often unaware of what to say or do. We want to take the pain away, to fix the unfixable. We are uncomfortable being next to someone who is grieving because we are scared. ‘Letters to Forever’ is a space to learn how to be with grievers and how to listen. Often, just sitting in silence is enough. Just like dementia isolates one from society, grief can be a powerful dividing stigma. This not-good-enough-ness shrinks our world, makes us feel inadequate, unable to perform to the fullest, hard on ourselves.
‘Letters to Forever’ opens a conversation about the individuality of grief, normalising it. It is OK not to be OK, to be broken and not judged for it. My project features holistic workshops offering tools to help process grief and loss. One of them focuses on companions of people living with dementia; those often overlooked and drowning in anticipatory grief. Elsewhere, visitors encounter sound pieces: a meditation on loss, a sound bath exploring the frequency of healing and a piece transferring text directly into music. Sculptural works inhabit other areas, including a suspended printed textile, a specially commissioned scent, and a length of hand-knitted paper spun from printed copies of the letters. Beyond the building, the installation seeps into the grounds: an intimate ring of pre-loved chairs awaits, and a series of bespoke engraved plaques lie amongst existing gravestones. ‘Letters to Forever’ is multi-sensory, deepening emotional resonance and fostering an embodied experience of grief. It helps us connect with our emotions in a tangible way, making the process of healing more accessible and personal to highlight that grief is just one of the threads in a spider’s web. It is a journey, not the end.
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