Kim Go

I am an artist in the expressive, installation and performance arts. I write because of our shared cultural beliefs about loss offer far too few tools to people working with grief. When I was very young, I thought little about impermanence. Then, my personal encounters with impermanence grew to include such challenges as: my father's death in early childhood, a near-death experience in adolescence, divorce, fertility challenges, death of a soul mate and spouse and subsequent loss of access to stepchildren, mugging and assault, pet loss, job loss, suicide of two close friends, and geographic resettlement. Perhaps we have something in common... perhaps not. I have learned that the specificity of the loss does not matter as much as the condition of the heart to be open to others who are learning to be present and alive regardless of the impermanence in their story.

Articles:

Woman Sets Out to Complete Loved One’s Bucket List

My beloved partner Brian was a very young man when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Doctors gave him an estimate of 6 – 12 months to live. As timing would have it, the movie “Bucket List” had come out a year before. This caused much discussion among visiting friends that Brian should make a bucket list. Brian seemed disinterested. He made two concrete, but modest requests – the procurement of a beautiful bathrobe and the commitment to keep up on his grooming. Brian was a fastidious man, and I made his requests happen. His friends talked of helping Brian […]

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Grief and a Lack of Good Photos

Photos can become a treasured possession when we are grieving. Unfortunately, circumstances may result in regrets about the photos we possess. We cannot change a lack of historical photos in our archives, but we can address the problem with creativity. Because photography is an interpretive art, we can feel liberty to create our own interpretive visuals. If you are grieving a lack of photos – consider the following: – Take a tip from our Victorian ancestors. When photography was introduced in the 19th century, the limitation of time and geography immediately became apparent to our ancestors. They responded by bringing […]

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