Melissa Lord has seen and experienced life and death working as a nurse, but for the past two years, she has grieved both publicly and privately. The Valley mom started going through a divorce and lost her 16-year-old nephew, Preston Lord.
"Looking back now, I can see every stage of the grief process," said Melissa.
She told ABC15, in her first interview, that she prayed for a purpose to her pain. Melissa said she found that while putting pen to paper.
"Writing has been so therapeutic for me," said Melissa. "It is, it's my outlet."
She's hoping it can also serve as an outlet for others going through grief.
Melissa recently created and published a grief journal called "Echoed: If I write loud enough, will you hear me?"
"It's about you being able to really process and go through the stages of grief, through these writing prompts that I've come up with, to be able to hear yourself," said Melissa.
Throughout the journal, Melissa shares writing questions and quotes.
"I unfortunately have to walk through grief with my patients sometimes, too," said Melissa. "And so being able to think about what are the questions that, not only we ask ourselves, but what are some questions that people may want answered as they're going through those processes, really helped me as well."
She even included some of her own written words and admits that it can be a scary process.
"That's my way of communication, though," said Melissa. "I have always been a writer, and so being able to write and give life to the words was also really, really empowering."
She hopes this journal can serve as a gift to help those going through the stages of grief.
"I want people to know that this is for them," said Melissa. "That is have one-on-one time with yourself, with your thoughts, set a timer, grab a pen and really just take the thoughts and just write them out. It's not about grammar, it's not about how pretty it looks. It's about just getting those thoughts out and giving life to them so that the healing process can begin."
"Echoed" is available on Amazon, but Melissa hopes that some local Valley bookstores will also pick it up as well.
"I think they're going to think that they're writing to the person that they've lost," said Melissa about those who use the journal. "And then I end it and let them know that, no, you've been writing to yourself the whole time. And I hope they can go back and go, Oh, that gave me chills, like I was writing to me. I wasn't even writing to the person that I lost as a part of my healing."
