Lisa Sniderman

“And just as I allow myself finally to open my heart, and let the feelings out, a pandemic strikes and dismantles the very fabric of our world and shakes all of us in it, reminding me how fragile, how connected we are. And the grief continues to pour in. Isolation. Quarantines. We grieve for our families, our friends, our changed world, our normalcy, our lack of control, lost jobs, loss of personal connection, lost freedoms, lost lives… so what started as a project to grieve my illness transformed into creating during COVID through grief, and grieving and finding meaning through creativity…”

Lisa Sniderman, aka Aoede, shares her musical project, “The Grieving Project," a powerful spoken word musical audiobook that sets the stages of grief to music. In it, four different young adults and adults with four different chronic illness experiences plunge through 14 stages of grieving and thriving, navigating their lives, their losses, their heartbreak, their self-discovery, through a melding of words and an emotional orchestra, and take us on a moving journey from surviving… to thriving. For more information about the project, to listen to sample audio tracks, or to view the digital lyrics booklet, go to https://alightinthedarkness.info/the-grieving-project. You can also read more about how Lisa’s process was affected by COVID-19 at https://myositislife.org/2021/07/i-forgot-to-grieve.