I could not begin to describe, or even feel, the kind of Hell Carol Gulley has endured this past six months. Her much beloved husband Ed, with whom she shared every minute of every day for 47 years, died a hard death from brain cancer as she not only watched helplessly, but also had to decide how to help him leave this world in comfort and grace.

Carol does not know how to ask for help, and has never, in the course of our friendship, done it. She is a student in my Writing Workshop, and she came to our class today.

She has had a hard time writing about her pain and her grief, she doesn’t want a “pity party,” she said, as if that were even possible.

I don’t pity Carol, not as a friend, not as a teacher. That would be patronizing, she would hate it. I decided to be a teacher, not a counselor.

I told her the people who worry about being a “pity party” are never the ones seeking pity. The pity seekers never know it.

We all talked to her about the fact that she should be as free not to write as to write as she struggles with shock and grief.

Carol has struggled to write often in these past weeks, and who could ever blame her? This intense grief is staggering and draining. In a way, it is like losing one’s own life. Carol wants to write again, and today, she took a huge step towards doing that, she showed great courage and heart.

But I also urged her to consider writing honestly about her grief, not to gain pity or entertain anyone else, but because I sincerely believe it would be helpful to her to remain connected to the many people who have followed and support her and Ed’s blog the Bejosh Farm Journal, which Carol wrote herself every day.

Carol is a gentle and beautiful soul, and her world seems to be falling apart. She is on that line between loss and rebirth, it is the loneliest place on the world. I told her that she is a writer by nature, and that good writing is about vulnerability, not only strength.

“Today,”she  wrote, “I went back to writing class for the first time since last Spring and the entire group urged me to write about how I am feeling.  They assured me that what I am going through is perfectly normal, I told them I don’t want a pity party, just to be true to what I believe.”

And this, I told her is what good writing is, being true to what one believes. You can’t worry about what people will think.

“Time and writing honestly and openly is that will help,” she wrote. “I know there are those out there who can relate to this process of grieving and will understand…Please, just bear with me for a bit…I need to find that safe and secure feeling again.”

As a witness to the sickness and death of Ed Gulley, and Carol’s devoted and unwavering care for  him, I can say there is nothing “normal” about what she went through, just as there is nothing “normal” about her or her writing.

You are writer, we told Carol, and writers write, and not only about the good stuff. It is itself healing and liberating.

And this was a very big deal for her to write: “So don’t vive up on me quite yet…it will no longer be My Farmer and Me…perhaps just me – moving forward.”

And that is so much the truth.

For several years, Carol wrote mostly about Ed, a dominant, sometimes overwhelming, presence. He defined and shaped their narrative.

Now, the story is different. The story is her, someone who always was content to be in the background.

Carol, if she wishes – and she does – will take her time and  define herself and her own writing. I have no doubt she will do this, and in her honest, unassuming, authentic and inspiring way.

I am  fortunate to have her in the Writing Workshop. And proud of her today.