Grief doesn’t knock politely.
It doesn’t check your schedule or wait until you have time to deal with it. It can come out of nowhere—a smell, a taste, something familiar, or just one thought.
Then wham.
It’s a flood.
For me, that flood is mostly about missing the people I loved. It isn’t only something happening in my head. It makes my heart physically hurt.
I miss being able to ask my parents for advice. I miss having the people who knew me before life became so complicated. There are times when I wish I could sit them down, explain everything that has happened, and hear what they think I should do.
I believe they would tell me:
Don’t give up. Keep fighting.
So I do.
I keep fighting for myself, for their memory, and for the life they wanted me to have. More than anything, they wanted me to have a home.
Not just a building with an address.
A home means safety. Peace. Security.
Things that sound basic until you’ve lost all three.
Losing my parents has almost been like losing my sense of self. So much of what I had always known changed or disappeared. The people, the home, and the life that once told me where I belonged were suddenly gone.
When that much changes, you have to figure out who you are without it.
What I’ve managed to hold onto is EyeJelly and the ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
EyeJelly has become more than a business to me. It is something that still belongs to me. It is a piece of myself I can hold onto when everything else feels uncertain.
Art helps with the grief, but it works both ways.
Sometimes it is a good distraction. It gives my mind somewhere else to go when everything becomes too heavy. Other times, it gives me the space to process what I’m feeling. While my hands are working, my mind can sort through things that I may not be able to explain any other way.
When I create something connected to my parents, the healing doesn’t only happen when the piece is finished. It happens during the hours I spend making it.
For that time, the emotion has somewhere to go.
People sometimes talk about grief as if it has a deadline. As if enough time passes and suddenly you are supposed to be finished with it.
I don’t believe that.
There is no deadline. There is no clean moment when it is simply over. I think we learn how to survive again—only now we are surviving minus the person or people we lost.
My grief comes in layers.
My mom’s death is fresher, so I miss her the most right now. Then I start thinking about my dad and missing him too. One loss reaches over and wakes up the other. Before I know it, everything compounds.
I cry. I let it out the best I can for that particular moment.
But the heaviness doesn’t disappear afterward.
Crying doesn’t magically drain the grief out of me. Sometimes it is simply my body admitting how much weight I am still carrying.
Then I go back to what I know how to do.
I work. I reflect. I rest. Then I work again.
I keep moving forward.
When life becomes overwhelming, I set obtainable goals and focus on executing the task in front of me. I don’t try to solve my entire life in one afternoon. I find the next thing I can actually do, and I do it.
Sometimes survival isn’t a grand victory.
Sometimes it is finishing one task while your heart hurts.
Sometimes it is getting through one more day.
Sometimes it is sitting down to draw because making something is the only way you know how to process what you’re carrying.
If you are grieving, don’t fake yourself out.
Don’t convince yourself that you should be over it because somebody else thinks enough time has passed. It is a process. It ebbs and flows. Some days the road is smooth. Other days one familiar smell can send you flying through the windshield.
That is the emotional highway.
You don’t control every turn, every hill, or every storm that crosses it. You just keep your hands on the wheel and ride it the best you can.
Grief has no deadline.
Love doesn’t either.
Maybe that is why losing somebody hurts so deeply. The person is gone, but the love is still here—and now you have to learn what to do with it.
I put some of mine into the art.
I put some into building a future.
And when I cannot see very far down the road, I put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.
—Jason Ewing
EyeJelly Streetwear™
Museum Art Printed for the Streets.