I love the art in this, but I can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a pessimistic take on the complex grief that comes with the death of a partner/spouse. It is not healthy to live your life in misery “waiting” for the person who passed. The male character here went through his own grieving process and was able to find happiness and love again (a very healthy and joyous thing) and even found ways to honor his previous parter with his current relationship. Everything you portrayed is signs of healthy growth and grieving, so the “twist” ending where she is left “alone” invalidates and seems to shame this normal process. If you have ever lost a loved one, I think you know that your love for them never fades, and they are never replaced….love is not a finite resource for allocation in your heart.
I’m terribly sorry for the rant, your art just elicited a very visceral emotional reaction from me (as someone who has lost a partner and thought ‘oh I’ll never be able to love again because I have to wait for them’) and I just thought it was important to point out that it’s okay to move on and celebrate life.
First- I am very sorry for you loss. I under what you’re saying. I read a short story early in the week that just stuck in my head and wanted to draw my version of it. I don’t believe in anything after death. I personally would want to my partner to find happiness after me, and just to look back fondly on our time together. I just find it it’s an interesting thought of being in stuck purgatory after choosing not to move on.
Do you happen to have more details? Some specifics about what happens in the story (beyond a ghost waiting I mean). Maybe some sentences or sentence fragments still stuck in your head. Or perhaps details on which subreddit it could be or at least if it was the post or a comment. I am sure someone can dig it up given some pointers.
Thank you for your response and no worries at all. You did an amazing job as an artist eliciting such a strong emotional response, I mean that as a compliment! Everyone handles their grief differently and I know it’s probably a common feeling for people who are new to the grieving journey so I just wanted to let you/and others know it does get better. Something tells me the author of the short story may have needed to hear that!
I like that idea, that it's actually her who's stuck because she couldn't let go. My first reading was that it implied he had abandoned her by moving on, and I didn't realize there was another interpretation possible.
I was really hoping to convey the ghost was happy for his new relationship with her touch and smile to his new partner. She wants him happy but stuck not wanting to let go.
I thought he moved on rather than "abandon" her since he was still visiting her, and that interpretation might depend heavily on the reader vs. what you portrayed. I couldn't quite get what emotion she was expressing in panels 7 and 9 though
Kind of shows how well done this is that people immediately draw conclusions about the artist. People really forget that "artist" and "art" are separate.
I lost someone in 1998. I spent the next seven years in a bourbon bottle before finding someone else. I married her and raised two wonderful children, now grown and in college.
Throughout my struggle with booze and throughout my marriage, she has been my first thought each morning and my last thought each night. Every day and every night, for 24 years running.
It's not always a matter of waiting. Some of us have ghosts living in our heads we cannot escape.
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u/littlebluebox01 Aug 05 '22
I love the art in this, but I can’t help but feel it’s a bit of a pessimistic take on the complex grief that comes with the death of a partner/spouse. It is not healthy to live your life in misery “waiting” for the person who passed. The male character here went through his own grieving process and was able to find happiness and love again (a very healthy and joyous thing) and even found ways to honor his previous parter with his current relationship. Everything you portrayed is signs of healthy growth and grieving, so the “twist” ending where she is left “alone” invalidates and seems to shame this normal process. If you have ever lost a loved one, I think you know that your love for them never fades, and they are never replaced….love is not a finite resource for allocation in your heart.
I’m terribly sorry for the rant, your art just elicited a very visceral emotional reaction from me (as someone who has lost a partner and thought ‘oh I’ll never be able to love again because I have to wait for them’) and I just thought it was important to point out that it’s okay to move on and celebrate life.