Devastation and Artistry

My sister made these. I love them!

September 19, 2025

Five months ago, my sister and I lost our dad after a painful, emotional journey with a rare and aggressive lymphoma. His passing devastated her.

It affected me too, but differently.

What leveled me entirely came six days later: discovering that the man I loved deeply, fully, truly had built our entire relationship on lies, control, and emotional and psychological abuse. From the very beginning.

We were both consumed by grief.

But not the same grief.

We were both trying to survive.

But not the same war.

In the aftermath, I found a creative outlet early.

I built personal brands, designed websites, drafted TED Talks, and outlined my memoir.

I threw myself into healing the trauma and building my future. I wrote poetry and personal essays that helped me process the unthinkable losses and betrayals.

I wrote about the war I didn’t know I was fighting.

About diamonds laced with poison.

About stitching myself back together with golden strands of self-worth and non-negotiable standards.

I called my abuser what he was: a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I poured my soul onto the page.

And my creativity came alive in a way it never had before.

My sister’s path was different. She’s always been creative. Her art lives in knitted hats made with no patterns, needlepoints she designs from scratch, handmade jewelry, and the way she decorates her home. But in her own struggle to survive, it felt like her creativity had died.

Until today.

Today, she told me her creativity is coming back to life.

Through beads and wires and delicate glass strawberries she’s turning into beaded plants.

I love my sister deeply. And I’ve always been a little jealous of how her creative mind works, envious of the way she can see something in her head and bring it to life with her hands.

For a long time, I didn’t recognize my own creativity. I didn’t see how it lived through me. How it shaped me.

But it was there. In the way I renovated our family business. In the performance art of stage productions and musicals. In my work as an emcee, a TV host, a radio personality. In the way I raised my kids. And in how I created myself, again and again.

There is no single box that creativity fits into. It looks different for each of us. Creativity is artistry.

And when life changes, when the world collapses and we have to summon every ounce of strength just to survive, it might come roaring to life.

Or it might go quiet, burrow into the dark, and wait.

Neither is wrong.

Each is its own sacred process.

And in time, through pain, something new can emerge.

Something surprising. Something stunning.

Something that reminds us we’re still here.

Still breathing.

Still creating.

And life is still worth living.