Imaging the future after loss
CW: grief. fire. accidents. anxiety. suicide.
In September of 2020, there was a fire storm in Oregon. Some people lost everything. Habitats were lost and forever altered. I lost my 14 year old son. Not from the fires, but the smoke played its part in a terrible tragedy that should not have been his future. Over a year, I still hurt everywhere. Smoke gives me anxiety. Thinking about the future feels like a betrayal to what should have been. As I trudge through the grief stricken landscape of my life, I try to live for my other kids, and for him, to make the world a place where kids can feel they have a future.
I made this piece as art therapy, to begin the healing of my creative spirit because I could not imagine the future. I stared at the white paper and every image seemed contrived. Until I finally saw the past and future me, a charred tree of life, supporting each other with compassion. On the left grieving for the ashes of the past and on the right being open to the new life that would inevitably and so bittersweetly grow from those ashes. A future that would never have been without the loss. I used a woodburning pen, a new medium for me, and had to wear an N95 mask as I burnt it out. If I make a mistake, it's now part of the plan.
Grief is very isolating, but I know that I am not the only one. There are millions of people all over the world at this very moment trying to pick up the pieces and build a future. Whatever future humanity has depends on compassion towards ourselves and our neighbor. We must acknowledge and grieve the deep loss of habitats, animals, homes, friends, family, opportunity, time, health, and dreams. Acknowledge the part played by injustice, unfairness, untimeliness. By grieving and owning our past we can build a future, otherwise we are just recreating the past. It won't bring them back. That's the hard part. All the work and we can’t bring them back. Proclaiming, “We can make a better future!” cuts like a knife when those we lost don’t get to be a part of it except through our actions.
It is a complicated grief and joy, building the future. For myself I couldn't conceive of what to put in the right side of my image besides a few spring flowers, a timid shoot. But I was reminded of my son’s love for mythology, a love we shared, so I put a phoenix into the future. Symbols can be very powerful healing agents. The mess that our planet is in, because of us, is so overwhelming and urgent I get panic attacks just thinking about it. I know we will make so many mistakes as we try to build better. The fear of those mistakes and future loss can leave us petrified doing nothing. Please join me in doing it anyway. And remember compassion.
Genece Cupp
This piece was the description companion to my painting that was part of the Imagine the Future exhibit at the Philomath Museum, March 2022
