GEMMA, LEBANON
For confidentiality reasons, all the names used in our beneficiaries' stories have been changed. [*]
Gemma*, together with her older brother, Carl*, and their mother Souha*, lost her father during the 4th of August 2020 Beirut explosion. He died at the hospital sitting by Gemma’s bedside while she received her treatment. In the very first art therapy session, Gemma drew her safe home with father, mother, grandparents, brother, and herself all safely inside it (Fig. 1). Gemma has not accepted that her father is gone.
Working together, Gemma and her mother created images (Figs. 2 and 3) portraying their love for their father/husband and how much they miss his presence in their life.
Fig. 1: Gemma’s drawing of her “safe home”
Fig. 2: Drawing by Gemma and her mother
Fig. 3: Another drawing by Gemma and her mother
These images allowed them to begin the process of acceptance after seven months of sadness, grief, and loss. That the mother and daughter were able to work together to express their feelings allowed them also to connect with each other and begin to heal.
Images after images the pain of losing a father, a husband, is being released softly to allow the child and the mother to draw new pictures of hope, of joy, which are crystallised in the heart of the patient to celebrate a new future.