Scrapbooking about grief

I have never lost a child so I cannot speak from a place of understanding for what you are going through, so I want to start by giving you my heartfelt condolences.

I can however (and have on 2peas in the past) speak about the trauma I went through a couple of years ago in the Aussie bushfires. It took two years for me to be able to write about this time, and it ended up being in the form of many, many words that are “hidden” in a pocket envelope on a page in a December daily scrapbook.

I cried writing those words. I had to stop a number of times as the memories overwhelmed me and were just too much. But I got them out and it did give me a sense of peace. Will I ever read them again? Maybe… but then again maybe not. They exist and that is enough. I feel by “naming” the trauma, it no longer has power over me and I can start/continue to heal.

It does make me feel better to know that something so painful is housed (“hugged” or “enveloped” is the way I think about it) between other memories and stories that are so happy and bring me so much joy. I choose to think that the happy memories are keeping the sad ones safe.

I haven’t been able to write about the week I lost both my grandfathers yet. But I hope that one day I will find the perfect place to document this story too.

I usually only scrapbook about happy events. I don’t scrapbook the mundane. I have only made 3 layouts that dealt with tragedies in my life, and I only did them because that year I included a monthly calendar page. It forced me to deal with scrapbooking those events. They were the hardest layouts that I have ever done, but I am glad that I did them. One of them still makes me cry every time I look through that album: the death of my mother. I still cry when I look at those pages, and I cried buckets as I scrapbooked that event. I don’t look at it often.

I rarely scrapbook tragedy. I typically scrapbook the things that I want to remember and focus on, the parts of my life that make me feel blessed, but if I lost my daughter, I would want to scrapbook everything that I could about her life, including how I felt about her loss. I wrote/scrapbooked my mother’s story, up to about my birth. I need to finish it. Her life story doesn’t make me cry, just the fact that she is no longer a part of my daily life.

I don’t know what to tell you, but it can be a good thing. It is hard dealing with the emotions of loss, and I can see why the therapist recommended it, but it will be difficult, no matter what. You have my sincere sympathies.

I haven't lost a child. But we have dealt with severe medical issues. And I have scrapped some of them.

One was the NICU stay and seizures. At the time ds was born my favorite band Depeche Mode come out with a new album and one song stuck with me - Precious. The words were so fitting. It was a few months later that I decided to scrap NICU photos. And for one layout it was ds hooked up to all the machines and whatnot with the title Precious and some of the lyrics.

I then journaled about how I felt and my pain and anxiety and worries.

It felt good.

Life isn't always happy and for me it is important to document the not so happy stuff too. I don't share it here or other places. But it's in the kids books.

I have also scrapped PICU stays, acute care stays, surgeries, procedures, therapies, medical interventions (TPN, NG tubes, IViG, SCiG).

The grief of not having a healthy child is real and so I guess too that is another reason I scrapped the events. You see what other families are able to do and what they don't have to deal with and then you see your family and it stings. But then it helps you look and see how you have grown and what you've been through and the progress you have made and all that.

It is therapeutic.

Therapy isn't for me. Scrapping (and baking/cooking, photography, horse riding, etc) are my outlets.

((((Hugs))) and prayers jeremysgirl.

My experiences have been different than yours but I have scrapbooked loss/grief.

I had a late miscarriage and I did a mini book with his u/s photos and photos of the flowers my mum sent and the mementos we kept and journalling about our excitement and hope and then about our loss and grief. It wasn't fun and easy scrapbooking but I think it was helpful for me to have done.

More recently - my mother died unexpectedly in 2019 and I did (and shared here) some layouts about my last visit to her and the changes from dementia and then about losing her. I think writing the journalling was helpful for me - but it wasn't something I was up to right away.

Only you can know if it's helpful to you. But I tend to think that giving it a try is worth it - there's nothing wrong with doing a layout about your grief - or about being angry or lost or confused or whatever emotions you're currently feeling. There's also nothing wrong with doing a PL page about the day to day things that still have to happen/still are happening - or including the way those have changed.

I think you should give it a try, take a step back, assess the situation, discuss it with your therapist and decide. I understand your worry that this might push you to spend too much time withdrawing in a grieving space that turns into deep depression but you've got professional help. Lean into that, rely on your therapist's knowledge and wisdom and share openly with her.

I've done a page about losing a close friend a few years ago. We were in our early thirties and it was unexpected. I planned on doing a small in memoriam page. It turned into a page that actually celebrated my friend's life and the memories we shared. I came back to it over and over again. Bawled my eyes out at times, ripped everything off the page, started again. It was a much longer and arduous process than I'd anticipated and it's only afterwards, once I'd finally finished the project (it turned into something bigger with two big fold-outs) that I understood how vividly the creative process had embodied my mourning and grieving. The page hadn't been dictating my feelings but the process to get to the final result reflected them.

Since you brought up the matter of keeping such a project private or not, it's up to you. If you do a PL/story book about 2022, I don't see how your daughter's passing wouldn't in some way be part of it. This will shape your year and your future. There's no need to hide it away. If you're making a more personal page, you can absolutely keep it to yourself. There is no need to share or put it on display. You can express every emotion you wish to. Never forget the page is your space first and foremost. Whether you put it out there for the world to see is a decision on a case-by-case basis. You don't owe it to anyone.

I can't promise this will be the same for you. But I'd encourage you to tap into your creative outlet to transform your pain and find that compromise between the bitter and the sweet of living on with the memories of a loved one suddenly gone. Remember that all artists turn their torments into something. Like the grieving artist's deus ex machina, ars ex dolore (art from pain).

Condolences again. Trust yourself. Trust your therapist. And know you can always put the project away if it gets too painful. You don't have to do anything, you don't have to finish anything either. Please remember you're not committed to getting the page done if you start.

Wow, this thread brings me to tears, such gentle sharing of grief through it.
I think the sentiments are exactly what I would have shared so I will not repeat.

My experience: as I started to scrap, I was simultaneously composing the journaling in my head and I had too much grief and could not see through my tears. It was not scrapbooking. So I separated the 2 components:

-I left NO ROOM for journaling, and scrapped the pages focusing only on the person and photos and making the pretty pages they would like. I felt comfort that they were still part of the family. I could scrapbook the person and even the bad moments with a calm sadness.
-The journaling I did completely separately, voice dictating and then typing or writing it out. Bawling and taking many breaks. Then I included it on the back of the pages.

Hugs and peace to you as you learn to move through life without Esther!

My friend made a beautiful mixed media album about the loss of her child. She did all hidden journaling so if you just casually flipped through the book you would just see very pretty pages, but if you looked closer you could see all the tabs with the hidden journaling underneath. She said it was the best thing she's ever made and it so glad she did, even though it was so hard to make at the time.

I originally started scrapbooking after losing my husband in an accident. I wanted to make an album about him to share with our boys who were only 6 and 4 months at the time. This really helped me focus on happy memories and finding connections. It also helped me record some details before I forgot. I was also in therapy at the time. My therapist suggested I start journaling and I found it really helpful. Even if I wrote and tore it up, the act of writing it out helped me process my thoughts and feelings.

I don't share a lot about my boys on here, but both are/were medically complex and severely disabled due to a rare genetic disorder. Scrapbooking some of their hospital stays and medical challenges has sometimes been helpful. And I still journal when I feel the need.

I lost my younger son several years ago at the age of 20. My sister took some pictures at his memorial before everyone arrived. I took several months to make an album of the photo boards we made, flowers, cards, etc.It really helped me process my grief. No one but me has seen these layouts.

I think you should give the journalling and/or scrapbooking a try. You could keep it just for yourself. Maybe something smaller like a traveler's notebook would feel more manageable. Hugs.

I completely agree with this!

Even though it has been six years, I have not been able to scrapbook about my son's death. I do find scrapbooking to be therapeutic, and I continue to scrapbook pictures from when my son was living, but I don't seem to be able to mesh my grief with this hobby of mine. (At least not yet.) I have always been a consistent journaler, so writing about my grief has seemed very natural. My son's friends set up a memorial Facebook page years ago, so I include photographs and memories on that page, especially on the anniversaries. I write poetry. I keep a separate journal in which I write "letters" to my son. 

My therapist has encouraged me to find creative outlets for channeling my grief. I encourage you to seek what feels most natural for you. It may be something with mixed media, or something in a traveler's notebook. It may or may not be scrapbooking. It does not need to be anything big or important. I find it helpful simply to keep my hands busy and make something pretty, but for someone else, it may not need to be pretty at all.

You are still in the early stages of your grief, so please give yourself some grace. 

A year or two after my brother passed, I made a scrapbook for my mother using all her photos of him and a few of mine. I didn't journal in it though, because the book wasn't mine. She has her own memories of him, as do my other brother and my sisters. And, tbh, the memories weren't all happy ones. Even without journaling, it was still cathartic. It was a long process piecing the book together, and it was time spent thinking about him.

Someday I'll write about him and about everyone else in my life, but I'm not there yet.

Alternatively, I have a journaling project I made without photos, immediately following the passing of another loved one. My emotions were very raw, but it's still full of only happy memories (I just didn't have any sad ones.) It was a list of bullet points. Seriously, just rapid fire thoughts that came to me faster than I could write them down. I was so scared I might forget something and the memory of it would be gone forever. After so many years (decades now! ) I still cherish it.

So sorry for you’re loss and I understand a little bit of what you are going through. I lost my sister on Christmas Day this past year, after a long battle with various illnesses and complexities. I haven’t exactly scrapped about her or her death, but I did a layout about the day after she died. It’s on my gallery if you want me to link it or send it to you. the average person probably wouldn’t know by looking at it what the layout is about, and there is no journaling. But the layout depicts how I was feeling that day. Since then I’ve also done two layouts that have her in them, but I’ve been putting off scrapping thanksgiving photos because it was our last memory together. Grief is hard.