"Empty” — A Painting Born From Grief

There are paintings I make that come from joy or reflection, but then there are the ones that come from something deeper… a place I don’t visit often, but one that shaped me. Empty is one of those pieces.

This 16x20 original abstract oil painting was created during the summer of last year, and it holds a piece of my heart that not many people get to see. Empty is a reflection of the many forms of grief we experience over a lifetime....grief from love, from loss, from things left unsaid, and from people we never thought we’d lose.

I’ve lost friendships. I’ve let go of relationships that meant the world to me at one time. But nothing, nothing, compares to the grief that comes from death.

This year marks seven years since I lost someone I loved deeply...a man I had known since I was sixteen. He was a friend who became a lover later in life. He had a rare heart condition and had been sick most of his life. Doctors gave him until his mid-30s. He made it to 31.

I remember the day everything changed. He went into cardiac arrest in my room. I was the one who called the ambulance. I was the one who waited. And I was the one who held my breath while they tried to revive him. He made it to the hospital, but he never came back. He was declared brain-dead shortly after. I stayed by his side as they made the impossible decision to remove life support.

TV shows make it seem like death happens quickly once the machines are turned off—but I watched him slowly die for thirteen long, gut-wrenching hours. I held his hand because his mother couldn’t. I was there when he took his last breath. And when he did… a single tear fell from his eye. He looked at me with a stillness I’ve never been able to explain. A stillness I can still see if I close my eyes.

That moment shattered me.

The weeks and months that followed were a blur of silence, numbness, and emotional collapse. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know how I’d ever find joy again. It felt like grief swallowed everything I was.

But life, as it always does, moved forward. Having my son saved me in many ways. He gave me purpose when I had none left for myself.

And when I was finally able to paint again, I poured every ounce of that grief into a canvas.

That’s how Empty was born.

It’s not a beautiful painting in the traditional sense. It’s dark. It’s raw. It holds a weight I still carry inside of me. The kind that comes in waves when you least expect it—waves of anger, sadness, silence, and the ache of remembering.

But I created it because I had to. I needed a place for that pain to live other than inside of me.

So if you ever come across Empty—whether online or in person...I hope you see more than just brushstrokes. I hope you see the story. The sorrow. The strength it took to survive. And maybe… you’ll see a piece of your own grief in it too.

Because grief never truly leaves. It just changes shape. And sometimes, it becomes art.

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Empty

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