Makerspaces: Making a way out of Grief

Image courtesy of Personal Tao

First, let’s get the basics of grief recovery on the table, and then we’ll explore one way that libraries can assist its community members in processing. 

I personally am no stranger to grief. I lost a 10-day old baby sister to medical complications when I was 11, lost my dad to divorce when I was 16, lost my first-born son who was seven at age 28, and am currently going through my own divorce at 39. So yes – I know what I’m talking about when I say that I’ve grieved. Deeply. Throughout my life. In many and various ways. Am I a miserable, unhappy person? I don’t think so. Am I bitter? Maybe sometimes, but not generally. What has made it possible for me to work through all of that suffering and loss and be emotionally stable? I can tell you one consistent go to that has helped: making something that made me feel connected to my loved one, allowed me to express how I felt about that person, or made me feel happy instead of sad.

Many tools are available to mourners from specialized service providers. And all of those, such as psychotherapy, support groups, and retreat weekends, are good and necessary. What is also necessary is the physical work that grief requires. After a person moves through the initial stages of recovering from their trauma, they enter a maintenance mode. Grief is a lifelong process, which gets revisited over and over and over and over and over in a lifetime. The type of grief work which a person does changes, but the process is never completed. 

Libraries are known to be places of healing and comfort, acknowledged by such ancient societies as the Greeks (Dovey). Libraries are also servants of their contextual community, and for this article I’ll focus on school and public libraries.  

In such a place, does the community expect to find comfort after tragedy? If death is such a normal part of life, how do librarians who help people deal with, discover, and work on everyday realities help people work through a community tragedy?  One example is to provide a space for people to create a physical memorial of a lost loved one. That’s exactly what Gina Seymour, librarian at Islip High School, did when a vibrant graduate passed tragically. The school librarian used making as a way for students to process their grief. With cooperation from a student club, Seymour borrowed a button maker to pay tribute to the deceased student. Both students and staff reported the closure, release, and help that the physical process of making and wearing a button with their dear one’s image had for them (Seymour).

Students at University of Dayton Libraries demonstrate button-making

Recently, in my own town, our community was rocked when three out of four family members were killed in a tragic car accident while on vacation. The surviving member was the youngest daughter. The father had been a teacher, the mother an active community volunteer, and the oldest son a student. The whole family grew up in this small town; they had lived, worked, and loved tremendously. Our library stepped in to provide a place for monthly grief workshops led by a local pastor, where hands-on activities were provided to help the community process their grief.  

Here’s a short list of activities that libraries might consider when helping a community recover from a tragic event:

• Creating a button with a favorite photo, saying, or symbol
• Drawing in abstract
• Mixed media art
• Planters or potted plant arrangements
• Paper lanterns
• Flower arrangements for their graves (or your own home)
• Sculpture
• Collage “in memorial” with photos of the person/people
• Planting a tree or flower bed
• Creating a rock garden with painted rocks
• 3D print a symbol, character, or animal in the person's favorite color

The following 3 minute video gives a summary of what I've written and offers an additional idea, the storyboard:

These are just some ideas that have been tried and worked for some people, but there’s no wrong way to go about expressing sad emotions through art and making. Almost any idea could be used and incorporated into the library’s regular programming. With a thoughtfulness, the makerspace in the library can be a place of healing and comfort, as they have been since ancient times.

References

Dovey, C.  (2015, June 9).  Can reading make you happier?  New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier

Seymour, G. The compassionate makerspace: grief and healing in a high school library makerspace. Teacher Librarian, June 2016. 29-31.

Personal Tao, & Casey. (2018, January 12). Releasing Grief. [Blog]. Retrieved from https://personaltao.com/releasing-grief/
University of Dayton Libraries. (2017). Borrow a Button Maker [Blog]. Retrieved from https://udayton.edu/blogs/libraries/2017-08-31-buttonmaker.php