WILDLY AUTHENTIC™
THE TRAGEDY
When I lost my partner and the person who knew me best to a random robbery- homicide in Maryland in 2002, I was certain I would not survive. I learned quickly and quite painfully that there were very few people or programs available to engage my grief. Who was going to help me confront the horrific fallout of my life as I knew it? How was I going to begin rebuilding a new "normal"? Confronting Ed's murder and the subsequent traumatic grief that followed meant negotiating a deafening silence. So often people had nothing to say. I call this phenomenon “white noise”.
THE OUTLET
When I found a support group for other co-victims of homicide and suicide two hours away from home, I drove there alone and anxious. I hoped that in their eyes I would find the unspoken understanding I'd been seeking - the kind I thought incomprehensible to someone who'd not traveled this journey. For 12 weeks I found a safe haven where my horror, rage, fear and hollowness could be validated - where people pentetrated that awful clumsy silence.
MY RESPONSE
As a transformational counselor, professional recording artist and writer, I knew the creative process was both cathartic and a powerful container. On my motherʼ’s piano, I began writing the songs that would eventually be called White Noise. At the time of recording this CD, I had no idea it would become the catalyst for a much larger project. It is because of these two platforms that provided me a lifeline during my darkest hours that I created The White Noise Project, an initiative created to support the tragically bereaved and their overwhelming need to bear witness.
THE GIFT
The project, comprised of an album, guided journal book and performance intervention, is a progressive healing model based on sharing, creative exploration and storytelling. For the last 10 years, The White Noise Project has provided an outlet for co-victims of homicide and tragic loss to explore and address their needs and to speak about the toll of their loss. In 2010, the project expanded to include training facilitators based on the White Noise
curriculum to companion and lead support groups for those directly affected by suicide loss.
BEARING WITNESS
Just speaking at all about our pain is a monumental leap. Sometimes hearing another's story can inspire us to reach for the next plateau. But always, the process of bearing witness to experiences that have hurt and disillusioned us offers testimony that we are alive, still here, holding onto a powerful will to survive, and to a willingness to be made whole again.
While the deepest scars of the homicide experience may never heal, the ensuing heartache can, I believe, be transformed from a horrific and private chronicle of grief into a bearable narrative, one that can be shared and revised.
Physical copy
