Coping With Loss

Coping With Loss

1) He studied his dead face for a long time.
2) He didn't know how to react. Should he stay strong or should he show how he truly felt?
3) Of course [we] were scared—[we] were terrified.
4) But,
5) This is no time for false pride.
6) This was always how we dealt with our pain.
7) He wanted, he needed, to hit me. So I let him.
8) Getting mad was how we kept each other safe, how we kept the other from doing something stupid.
9) He wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt.
10) He sighed heavily as if he couldn't understand how he, how we, had ended up here.
11) "I want you to feel what I felt."

12)

13) The overpowering heartbreak from the terrible loss we endured.
14) How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.
15) A deep sob came out.
16) How did you do it? What is the answer?
17) I thought about it because I really didn't know how I got over it, myself. It wasn't something I could explain.
18) Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss.

Acknowledgments
1)Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston, 87
3) "Sebastian Junger Remembers Tim Hetherington" (Letter)
5) Death Of A Salesman, Miller, 83
7) "Refresh, Refresh", Percy
8) "Sebastian Junger Remembers Tim Hetherington" (Letter)
9) The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, 89
10) "Refresh, Refresh", Percy
11) O'Brien, 179
12) Google Images- Coping with Pain
14) Thomas Jefferson
15) Hurston, 86
16) Miller, 84
18) Caleb Carr, Author

Response
Throughout first semester, we have been learning about several themes that relate all of the books, short stories, and other pieces of writing we have read. For this mash-up we had to choose one theme and grab quotes from all of the different pieces we have read in order to create a mash-up that flows smoothly, makes sense, and relates to our theme. I chose coping with loss because I thought all of the works we have read include this and the theme is challenging enough to write a creative mash-up.
After I gathered all of the important quotes I could find, I tried finding ways to put them together. I played around for a while but right away I knew that the first quote I used was definitely going to start off the mash-up. This quote from Their Eyes Were Watching God was a strong quote to begin with because it seems like the mash-up gets right into the action. It is abrupt and short which leaves readers wondering about the dead face "he" studied.
Throughout the rest of my mash-up, some of the quotes directly relate to coping with loss or pain and some are short quotes that add the the flow of my mash-up. I chose to sort of tell a story so while the quotes individually don't make sense, as a whole they flow into one and tell a story. Two guys are talking about how they individually deal with loss and how as a whole, people need to learn to cope with their own pain in their own way. I used short quotes because the tone of this mash-up is sort of confused. How are they supposed to react to loss? How are they bear such a terrible loss by themselves? A lot of the books and short stories that we read had to do with pain or loss and trying to control your emotions and that is why I picked this theme. It relates to almost everything we have read in class and can pull many different quotes together to create a story.
What I thought was cool about this mash-up was that there was no prompt. We had to pick our own theme and had so many options for quotes because of all the pieces we read in class. All of these 18 quotes came from so many different types of writing which makes it a unique project. A lot of the books and short stories that we read had to do with pain or loss and trying to control your emotions and that is why I picked this theme. It relates to almost everything we have read in class and can pull many different quotes together to create a story.