About Ditas

A DOZEN YEARS… have passed since I started this grief journey and this website

I have only recently come back to this site because I felt like I needed to share the rest of my grief journey. Raising my daughter as a solo parent, I had to lean hard on our community, our village to help me raise a 9 year old little girl into a brilliant, beautiful young woman. Over the first decade since Nick passed away, I invested in my career which has revolved around empowering underserved communities, giving them a voice through the power of data, and making time to heal through creative endeavors, yoga and meditation. Two years ago, after retiring from the state of California, I packed up and moved across the country for a fresh new start serving in the Biden Administration. I started my career 30 years ago in DC and I have returned to finish my career here to see how much impact I can have at the national level. Uprooting from a hometown where you spent over 20 years can be challenging - from finding a new dentist, hair dresser and starting a new amazing and challenging job— all of that change did not leave much room for anything else.

For 2024, I started painting again, started teaching yoga, meditation, sound baths and reignited my creative fire. I am deciding how to balance this creative wave, while wanting to take things to a higher level, to reach a wider audience, connect a broader community and figure out how to share the magic of art for joy and healing.

I have left the rest of my original narrative below because I think it is important to remember how the journey started and just how far we have come. I know my work and passion will always revolve around sharing ways to heal and learning how grieving through glee is a one way to the other side.

WHY GRIEVING THRU GLEE? 
The web url is “grieving thru glee”.  This thought came to me in 2009, shortly after my husband of 7 years had been diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic colon cancer.  Although, my family was facing this terrible predicament, many of my friends  were also facing their own personal turbulence.  With the Global Financial Meltdown (GFM) of 2008, everyone I knew was facing some type of loss.  Loss of their home, their job, their dreams, loss of a relationship, spouse, parent, child, friendship.  And as I looked around, I observed so much loss and as I looked right in front of me, I started to immediately grieve my loss even though my husband was still alive.  You see, when you are given a terminal diagnosis, first time stands still and then it fast forwards and then it just stops.  It stops because you can’t see a future, you can't imagine or dream of a future because you have just been robbed of it when the doctor tells you the prognosis is not great.  When forced, the doctor will tell you, “statistics say 6-24 months”.  

My daughter and husband watched a lot of television those 28 months he survived.   And “GLEE” was the top show on our DVR list.  The music and lyrics gave me the opportunity to feel something each week when I watched, breaking up my usual emotional numb demeanor.  And shortly after my husband succumbed to his cancer, I began my own “art and music therapy”.  I listened to GLEE soundtracks which helped me feel, feel something, anything.  And I painted, and painted, late into the night.  I escaped into the paint and the brush strokes and the colors.  The big bold colors of…not grief, but hope.  A hope that comes only after great pain and loss.

I mentioned that the last few years have been filled with great loss for so many friends and family.  Maybe not as final as the loss that my daughter and I suffered.  But none the less – loss of a marriage, loss of job and security, loss of a house/home, loss of your dreams – these losses are felt and can be worked through until the person finds their NEXT relationship , next job, next dwelling etc.  But when you lose someone, a spouse and a father, to death…nothing is as final as death.

So I offer my artwork, my thoughts and this website with music for your ears, lyrics and words for your heart, and images I have created for your eyes and soul – to help all of us to heal and understand that from great loss comes great personal growth.  “The more that it rains, the more I will grow”.  

Thank you for visiting my site. I hope you find time to explore each page as each painting has a story and deep emotions.  
 

How to view this site...

Each painting has their own page  with QR code and also has a thumbnail gallery of progress from blank canvas to finished painting.  On a desktop computer, the music (video) will launch automatically so you can hear the music and lyrics that inspired me to paint each piece – often I stayed up late into the night listening and getting lost in the paint.  On a mobile device you will have to launch the video to listen.  Hopefully you are viewing my work LIVE in a gallery where you can use the QR code for each painting to bring you to the page and the music.