Here,

Hold My Grief …

(artist: fm)

Here, Hold My Grief is an arts-based project exploring grief, loss, longing, and hope in 2SLGBTQ+ family-building journeys. Funded by the Ontario Arts Council, the project brought participants together through artist-guided workshops to share experiences that are often overlooked, minimized, or left untold. Through collective creation and storytelling, participants transformed their experiences into art, honouring the many paths and possibilities of family-building, including those that do not lead to parenthood. This zine is a collective expression of their stories, reflections, and creativity, offering a space for these experiences to be seen, shared, and held.

Textures of Grief

Created with the collaboration Artist Facilitators:

Pree Rehal

Jessica Watkins

Mabe Kyle

Ana Luisa Santo

Catherine Mellinger

And artist participants:

DB, Brandoz Vaz, Steven Holmes, fm, Joce Tremblay

Close your eyes and give yourself permission to feel your grief in this moment, however it shows up. Give your body permission to show you where in your body your grief lives today …

In your lungs

(artist: DB)

Behind your eyes

The length of your forearm

The space between your knee and your shin bone.

What is its colour?

What is its texture?

What is its desire?

What is it asking of you?

(artist: BV)

You will be where you end up being and it’s ok to be there in your thoughts, feelings and emotions.

You feel so deeply the grief of this world but still find ways to experience joy and have gratitude for the life flowing through you.

There will be fears, tears, pain, questions but also cats, camping in deserts, and moments of stillness where you will fall in love with your body and being.

You feel so deeply the grief of this world but still find ways to experience joy and have gratitude for the life flowing through you.

There will be fears, tears, pain, questions but also cats, camping in deserts, and moments of stillness where you will fall in love with your body and being.

Wounds that have yet to be healed and may never heal fully; what might be for nothing beyond enormous hope and love for someone we aren’t promised to meet.

Invited into the fire.

For the shapeshifting and graceful navigating.

You will be where you end up being and it’s ok to be there in your thoughts, feelings and emotions.

(artist: Ana Luisa Santos)

Invited into the fire.

(artist: SH)

(artist: JT)

P

We painted your room because we had hope …

(You have nothing to lose by expecting a miracle)

We didn’t get to meet you the first time …

or the second

Even when we tried EVERYTHING

We even named you (for now) …

O

or the third

P

P

Y

You aren’t our baby A, but we’ll love you forever. Always
Again.

Now we’re here waiting …

We won’t get to try to meet you for months …

I have to trust that one day, I might start to understand why.

I know that no matter what/why/how, you are SO worth the wait.

(artist: Sarah)

This online zine is the culmination of the Here, Hold My Grief Project.

Here, Hold My Grief is an arts-based community collaborative project created to hold space for the invisible, unspoken experiences of 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals on their journey to family building.

We would like to acknowledge the support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario, through which this project was made possible.