The Red Hand Files Index - grief

I’m having a bit of trouble in my teen years… someone I hold dear very dear has gone.She’s gone and I’m still here and she’s not dead or deceased but I’m unable to get in contact with her for reasons the cosmic universe chose for me.We very much love each other but it was time to part. She’s reminded me that this matrix is worthwhile and she’s shown me that I’m worth it too.Dear Nick, I miss her.I miss herI miss her.

HAJRA @ Issue no. 293

My grandfather, my hero, passed away several weeks ago. He was an incredible man: a chemist; a cowboy; a man of God. After flying back from the funeral in Kansas, it seems that every song / piece of music I write naturally and quite invariably floats back to him. It is a beautiful but hard thing. I feel lost and confused regarding the songs that are pouring out. Writing these songs/poems makes me feel so much closer to him, and I want to share them, but I have this rising fear that sharing them would cheapen or commodify his memory, our relationship. I don’t want to diminish him. I’ve always admired artists who have dealt with grief through their music, but now that I’m living it, I’m realizing how brave one must be to do so. One of the last things he said to me was “Apply the music!” but I am finding it hard to do so. What do I do with these songs?

TOMMY @ Issue no. 261

My life has been crazy since my daughter was killed in December. Some days I love the world and other days I would love to cause an apocalypse, I feel at times like how can I grieve my loss and so many others have lost just as well, this group of survivors remorse, and I didn’t ask to join don’t know how to categorize it. Did you like the interview you gave (on CBS) about defiance, against grief, cause you gotta become a bad motherfucker to keep on living and make a change in this world, I believe it’s our turn whether we want it or not, gone are the days of sitting on the side-lines, I’m going to try and figure it out. Thank you for allowing this platform, I don’t know what to say I’m still a mess. I will check your book out and hopefully get some new view on this crazy thing called grief!

ANTOINETTE @ Issue no. 254

I lost my dad a few years ago, in somewhat traumatic circumstances. I still feel him here with me, but sometimes it’s a bit too much and it makes me break down. Even five years after the fact. Do you have any advice on how to heal from this?

KEVIN @ Issue no. 228

My son died almost a decade and a half ago. I don’t have nearly as many dreams about him now but when I do, as when I had many, many dreams of him…he never speaks. I can be virtually right next to him in a known location. He never talks. Is there an underlying meaning to this?

DAVE @ Issue no. 225

My twin brother is dying at 23. I don’t know what to do or feel, I feel so angry at the world and upset at the unfairness of everything. I keep thinking about my next birthday, how it will be the first one I spend alone. I know you didn’t go through exactly the same thing but you went through something similar so I just want to ask, how can I stop feeling this pain and anxiety and sadness? Will it get better?

MADELINE @ Issue no. 211

I’m writing to you on behalf of my Aunt Marnie as she can’t. She’s consumed by grief. She lost her only child, Tristan, to a stroke, aged 49. We’re all consumed by sadness and mourn for the loss of her son, however hers is another thing altogether. She can’t bring herself to see anyone. I can’t reach her. Her laugh that brought smiles to all of us is gone. What can I do? What can I say? We all love her but feel so powerless. How can we start to bring our Aunt Marnie back?

IAN @ Issue no. 151

Hey first I wanna say really like your music i have lost my beautiful wife in cancer and my dear brother in covid 19 my question to you is how keep you going on after lost your son its hard sometimes to keep going on with life.

MATTI @ Issue no. 126

After the sudden and tragic death of our beautiful son, Dominic, my brother recommended for me not to listen to ‘Ghosteen’. Like my son, never one to be told what to do, I found it comforting and consoling but am still struggling with a reason to continue in this mostly beautiful yet, too often, painful world. How have you and your family been able to create meaning through such devastation?

CAROL @ Issue no. 95

I am 16 weeks and three days in at losing my child, and although I have found solace in your last three albums, I am a truth seeker in the depths of grief. Aside from moving furniture, how did Susie and yourself find peace with your agonising grief?

LUNA @ Issue no. 95

‘Girl in Amber’ is about your grief, right? I know Skeleton Tree was largely written before, but I can’t help but wonder.

KEVIN @ Issue no. 85

I have a question about grief. You have written exquisitely on the subject, and I have found great comfort in your words, and have great empathy for you and your family’s devastating loss of your precious son.My mom was murdered with an AR-15 by a white supremacist in our synagogue, killed because this 19-year-old felt Jews were ‘destroying’ the white race. It has been almost 8 months, I stopped counting out of numbness, and I still don’t have anger towards the shooter, but more so for people who my mother was close to, and in her death, claimed my mother as their own, and exploited the situation for their own gain. I am afraid to let go of the anger, because I feel it connects me to my mother, and to the tragedy where she died, my last experience with her. I am afraid to move forward in any way. Family members are grieving in a different way than I am and that makes things even more uncomfortable. I am afraid to connect or feel my mother’s spirit in any way. Do you have any advice on these components of grief: the anger; the fear. With utmost gratitude towards your input,

HANNAH @ Issue no. 74

My husband died some years ago but I feel him all around. How can this be?

MALINA @ Issue no. 55

I have experienced the death of my father, my sister, and my first love in the past few years and feel that I have some communication with them, mostly through dreams. They are helping me. Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?

Cynthia @ Issue no. 6

My dad is dying. It’s cancer. I’m spending as much time with him as I can, but in the absolute terror of it all, I can’t help but crack jokes. And then the guilt takes over. Do you or Susie ever joke or laugh in your grief?

ROGER @ Issue no. 305