Grief and Model Airplanes

On the joy of making

My sweet and funny brother-in-law Andrew died last month at age 56, and I can’t stop thinking about his obsession with model airplanes. He loved building them. But he also adored collecting the kits—sometimes in duplicate and triplicate. He had planned to build the others once he retired. 

Those unopened boxes are a metaphor for everything unfinished in his life. 

As I’ve circled this latest loss, like the bald eagle soaring over Andrew’s outdoor memorial service yesterday, I’ve found my spirits lifting. Because Andrew used to go into the garage, turn on the stereo, open a craft beer, and pull the boxes of unbuilt models down to admire them. Savoring the anticipation. Sitting with the possibilities. 

Andrew took pride in his completed airplanes, but I think he loved the making most of all. It’s the making, I imagine, that fueled his trips to the garage to pull down boxes of airplanes-to-be. He found joy in admiring the materials and imagining how he would, someday, glue them into place. 

The process of creative work has fueled me during these introspective and often-terrifying COVID months—not the end result. I’ve always loved to write, but before the pandemic, with time limitations that come with running a business and raising neurodivergent children, I fell into the trap of measuring my progress in terms of completion. Meeting deadlines. Finishing.

But now I write—and paint, doodle, and practice hand-lettering—because these activities fill me with joy. And I think the spirit of playfulness shows up in the lines, the scribbles, the sentences, the dialogue. 

My friend Dian Greenwood has revised three novels during COVID. She wrote them over the course of many years, but the slowing of life due to the pandemic has given her the focus to make major revisions with the help of a book coach. Watching her, head down and doing the work because she loves to write, lit a fire under me. Over the past few months, I finished a first draft of a novel I started years ago. I hired the same book coach—the amazing Suzy Vitello—to do a first-read pass on the new manuscript. And now I’m deep into revisions. And loving the process.

Making doesn’t feel so much like work if you’re not focused on what will happen when it’s done. In fact, it feels like play. It probably gives me a similar rush of delight that Andrew got from pulling box number eight (his favorite) off the garage shelf to admire the kits inside. To consider the making awaiting him. 

I love all the quiet introspection in my life now. In the past few weeks, I’ve had some major outward-facing successes, including selling an essay to The Vincent Brothers Review (issue #24), being named a finalist for the Distinguished Service Award from Professional Publishers Network, and recording an episode of Chasing Chaos that will air on April 28. I’ve worked hard to get here. But I’m not leaning forward, seeking the next marker of achievement, at the cusp of this great societal metamorphosis. I’m playing with the next paragraph. Considering the next feel-better card I want to draw.

At this time last year, Dr. Priya Khanna was fighting for her life in a New Jersey hospital. I put my head down in the dirt, near an ostentatious patch of red tulips, and smiled for a selfie, pretending my heart wasn’t breaking. Now, the tulips are back. I walk by and pretend I don’t see them. 

Priya lost her battle to COVID on April 13, 2020. My essay about grieving her, “Breathing Lilacs,” will go live at Psychology Today on that date. It was first published in Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19, edited by Jennifer Haupt (Central Avenue). If you think of it, please light a candle for Priya on the 13th. 

Your BRIGHT SIDE invitation: Please go make something. (Especially if it’s not on your to-do list!) If you need inspiration, this blog post by Katrina Kenison offers some beautiful ideas of what constitutes making—and be sure to read the incredible responses at the end. Thanks to Beth Kephart for sharing the post with me.

Feel free to leave a comment! I started this newsletter to create an intimate conversation space about creativity, grief, and the societal reset that the pandemic has offered creatives like us. I’d love to hear your thoughts.