BMH grief wall memorializes people who have died
Tanisha Bowman started her workday on Tuesday by removing chrysanthemum flowers, or mums, from a wall and replacing them with origami cranes with names written on them.
Bowman had been preparing the “grief wall” at Butler Memorial Hospital for months and had covered the green backdrop with at least 100 mums to accentuate the picture frames and lettered quotes also populating the wall. But in some Asian cultures and France, the flowers represent death, and are traditionally placed at grave sites.
People who notice the grief wall, which was placed outside the Tower Entrance at BMH on Tuesday, are meant to take a mum down from the wall, write the name of a deceased loved one on a paper crane and place it where the mum was, to symbolize their making peace with death, Bowman said.
“One of my jobs is processing loss to the dying and for the people grieving,” said Bowman, a palliative care social worker at BMH. “I walk them through their own grieving process because they can really do it however they want. This is one way they can take a moment to process.”
While Bowman had the idea for the wall several months ago, Tuesday was National Grief Awareness Day, so she planned to display it until next Tuesday.
The palliative care department at Butler Memorial Hospital cares for people with life-threatening illness at various stages of life. Bowman, a death doula, stays with people who are on the brink of death to help them process their emotions, along with any loved ones present with them.
Bowman said the grief wall will be another tool the department can use to lead people left behind to make peace with death and loss.
“My goal is to reduce the amount of trauma someone is feeling,” Bowman said. “This is more about the peace we can bring as a team.”
The wall was placed at the hospital unceremoniously, and it will be removed in the same way, because Bowman said the ability for people to engage with it on their terms makes the experience more personal.
“So we decided to just have it up and let people see it in peace,” Bowman said. “It’ll be worth knowing that people get some measure of peace from it.”
Dr. Dillon Stein, director of the Division of Palliative Care at Butler Health System, said working in the department can be emotionally taxing. Talking with people and families going through an end-of-life situation can be traumatizing, so the staff members sometimes take on consoling roles in addition to their health care duties.
“It means a lot for us,” Stein said. “We kind of insert ourselves into their process to not only help with connection, but with education about their own grief.”
On Friday, Bowman will remove the remaining mums from the wall, and turn on lights placed behind it to illuminate the cranes. On Tuesday, the wall will be gone until next year, and Bowman is still trying to figure out what to do with the cranes.
Bowman still keeps in touch with several people she met through her work in palliative care, and said she has told them about the wall to get their reactions on it. One of the first cranes she placed Tuesday was in memory of a woman’s husband, whom she met in Canada.
“I sent her a picture of the crane and she said, ‘Today is the anniversary of my husband’s death, so this really helped me this morning,’” Bowman said. “I have met some really amazing people through working here so this wall is really for all of them.”
