Reflective Letter

Dear Readers,

The creative process for this multi-genre project was an important one for me. When I started reading Looking for Alaska, I had no idea what my project’s focus would be. To be honest, I didn’t even know what the book was about. All I knew was that I wanted to give John Green a try, as people seem to LOVE him. I get it now. He has a fantastic way of creating complex characters to whom many teens can relate. When I reached the late middle of the book and realized that loss was an integral part of the story, I knew I wanted to explore grief. As I read, I found myself connecting to Pudge, feeling almost as though I knew him as I saw him grieve. So much of what he experienced, I had experienced through the loss of my dad. I wanted my project to center around the connection that I felt between me and Pudge and what that teaches me about grief.

In the few years following my dad’s death, I kept a diary in which I wrote about feelings in my everyday life, many of them pertaining to my loss. My golden thread for this project is excerpts from my diary, which I have incorporated in every genre plus my expository essay. I chose to thread my diary excerpts throughout my piece to show an honest, raw portrayal of my grief. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how I felt a few years ago, so to see my emotions in writing word-for-word helps to resurface those feelings. I want to explain where my golden thread is in each of my genres in case that isn’t clear. My poem titled “What’s Left?” is a portrayal of grief from my perspective, much of which is also how Pudge feels. The three words that are highlighted in grey in that poem were pulled from my diary. My next genre, titled “You Get It,” is a series of text messages between me and Pudge. I created this because besides my grief group, from which I did not form lasting friendships, I’ve never had friend who has lost a loved one. I wanted to see what it would feel like to have a conversation over text messages with someone experiencing grief. I actually found it to be a quite comforting conversation. When I talk about visiting Whitewater in the text message, I pulled those sentences straight from my diary. My third genre titled “Dear Pudge,” is a letter from me to Pudge, in which I talk about my experiences with loss and try to give him some helpful advice, incorporating my own perspective and supporting that with some of my research. I start off the letter with an excerpt from my diary showing how I felt when he first died. Lastly, my final genre, the art piece titled “riegf,” (the word “grief” scrambled up) is a plastic ball filled with torn shreds of paper, which includes excerpts from my diary, feelings I wrote down during grief group, and quotes from Looking for Alaska. The point of this piece is to show that grief is not one dimensional; grief is complicated and confusing, and it’s virtually impossible to sort together the disjointed pieces that make it up. It shows that grief is not just “sadness.” It is far more complex than that. This piece shows the layers that compose grief and the overlaps between my grief and Pudge’s grief in a visual way. Even though this project has presented a connection between me and Pudge and similarities in our grieving processes, this does not mean that grief happens in a universal way; I've discovered that grief vastly differs from person to person.

This project was an important, introspective process for me. Thinking about my experiences with loss 
and writing about them are coping mechanisms for me, and the more I do it, the better I can understand myself.

Thanks for reading!

Natalie