Grieve By Creating

Just a few of the flowers I grew.

February 27, 2026

I just had a realization.

Well, I’ve known it before,

but the thought has been fleeting.

Tonight it landed in a meaningful way.

I grieve by creating.

Especially in the early days.

The weeks and months when the loss is still sharp.

Yes, I cry.

I get overwhelmed.

I have to be extra gentle with myself.

I feel all the hard feelings.

I’ve been known to spend extra time in bed.

But in between those things,

and the responsibilities that don’t stop,

I create.

This website is a perfect example.

In June 2025, I started building my first website.

I began drafting crisis leadership business plans.

Before that, I had built a brand on social media and had a whole content calendar mapped out. Should I mention my mature woman modeling career portfolio I started before any of that? Well, it was real.

I have outlines for TED Talks.

Drafts of books.

Folders full of work.

And I wrote.

I had never written like that before.

The words poured out of me.

I have drafts you will never see.

The Maker of Glass Castles

When My Wildheart Met a Legal Brief

(That one is actually funny. I’m still a little sad I can’t share it.)

Fireweed

And a lot of writing with a lot of cuss words. Fuck might have been my favorite word for awhile.

Much of it was created in the midnight hours when grief, shock, anxiety, and heartbreak kept sleep far away.

And then I remembered — this isn’t new.

After the landslide, I did two things.

First, I opened a small store in the mall because we had products the community needed.

Remember the toilet paper shortage of 2020? I had my team haul toilet paper, paper towels, Lysol, thermometers from Tatsuda’s and set up shop. It grew into a full dry goods market I built from the remnants of Tatsuda's..

Second, I became a flower farmer.

Not literally — but close.

I had never gardened before, and suddenly it was my obsession. I built flower beds in my front yard and planted unreasonable amounts of plants with no real idea what I was doing.

And they grew anyway.

One fall I planted over 1,000 tulips.

They were stunning.

Dahlias,

ranunculus,

lilies,

roses,

daffodils,

peonies —

more than I can remember.

It was absolutely a coping mechanism.

I created beauty in the middle of devastation.

And I healed myself in real time.

And now?

Now I write. And I crochet.

I work my ass off on the school board with the goal of making it sustainably better.

I make things with my hands.

I make things with words.

I serve my community.

And I am in the process of building my empire.

When I am hurting, I build.

When I am grieving, I create.

So yes.

I grieve by creating.

How lucky am I that this is my coping mechanism?

Apparently, there is a word for it:

Generative Grief.

Look, I learned something new today.

Go me!