A Mixtape for Mourning
This was my final project for a death, dying, and bereavement class I took in my social work program, taught by eveline chang. It recycles many of my pictures, journal entries, music, etc. from my prior project, ReUnDisCovering.
Below is the introduction and conclusion from my final paper:
A Mixtape for Mourning is a zine that I created to process my journey with cancer and treatment in [2019]. The project was motivated by the complex feelings I experienced, my previous recurrences, and making sense (and making meaning) of everything in between treatment and after. One of the principles in meaning reconstruction involves utilizing narrative methods to re-author the narrative that has been distorted because of a loss (Neimeyer, 2000). This re-authoring is often a cathartic experience that allows one to recount memories, release emotional tension, and contain these complex memories into a container (Neimeyer, 2000). This project intends to honor and document my experiences of coping with my diagnosis, grieving over losses that I experienced because of my diagnosis, and finding hope and joy throughout.
The process of meaning reconstruction through A Mixtape for Mourning has helped me discover (new) meanings in my life as a patient, a cancer survivor, and as someone who is continuing to grieve and heal from this experience. I hope that this project will offer a glimpse to newly diagnosed patients, their families and caretakers, and their greater community of what a cancer patient or chronically ill person may experience through their diagnosis or treatment. I also hope this can become a resource in showing the many ways one can grieve and that the grief that cancer patients experience is legitimate and justified. Ultimately, I hope that A Mixtape for Mourning can be a mirror for someone like me and show that there are also endless ways that we can heal.
Neimeyer, R. A. (2000). Searching for the meaning of meaning: Grief therapy and the process of reconstruction. Death Studies, 24, 541–558.
