Stacee Lyn

I am so grateful for the life that I am currently living. I am doing what I love, I’m

alcohol free and am learning to love this new me. I have been going through my healing

journey for years now and I do not think I will ever stop healing or growing. I have

learned to embrace hardships and work through them. I dedicated my first solo art

exhibition to my sobriety and how my creative juices came flooding back after 8 years of not creating anything.

I have been dealing with anxiety since my sister took her life in 2018. It felt like

someone ripped my soul in half for so years. I turned to alcohol to sooth my grief,

sadness, and anger. I had to turn to grief counseling and support groups that helped me so much throughout this crisis. I do not know where I would be without them. It was a

helpful way to help process what happened and face the darkness that enveloped me.

My older sister Janine worked extremely hard at her job, a licensed clinical social

worker. Her coworkers told me she volunteered to take the hardest cases. She was very involved with the community assisting adolescent immigrants and refugees with mental and emotional support. She herself had a hard life, but still wanted to help those in need. I personally never saw the signs. I have read that most never do. I blamed myself. I went through the coulda, woulda, shoulda scenarios. Grief just comes in waves. I am okay one moment, the next I am inconsolable. I have to say that acceptance was the hardest to realize. I used art to express that, express what I cannot through words to her.

 I choose to remember her life on Earth and not dwell on how she left. I am a survivor of suicide loss. The club you never want to be a member of. My sister has certainly been the beautiful muse of my art and my writings. I still think about her every day. I have so many great memories of her. Even though she could not always be there for me, she always showed up to the important stuff.