Grief In Six Words: How Would You Say It?

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Legend holds that it was Ernest Hemingway who pioneered the art of the six-word story in the 1920s, in a single poignant line: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’

Known today as flash fiction or sudden fiction, grief experts Eleanor Haley and Litsa Williams wondered whether breviloquent home truths about grief could be just as compelling as famous fictional six-word stories.

Haley and Williams are the behind of What’s Your Grief?, a multi-faceted online resource providing a place where people can support others and be supported, through grief.

After they posted a six-word story grief journaling exercise on their website, they were overwhelmed with the number of responses they received. This inspired them to launch a new space online, griefinsixwords.com, which is completely dedicated to sharing succinct and deeply moving stories about life after bereavement.

whats your grief logo Picture: What’s Your Grief?

Each six-word story that’s been posted is a deeply personal narrative about grief and loss, revealing nuanced and complex thoughts and feelings.

The idea of the website is to share your own six-word story, read other people’s stories and show appreciations for those that most resonate with you.

“The six-word story asks both writer and reader to forget context and to rely on our common threads to communicate, comprehend, and connect,” say Eleanor and Litsa.

“If nothing else, we hope that the stories help people to see that they are not the only one and they are not alone.”