Transforming Loss (2013) by Judith R. Burdick

The death of a loved one is never easy. Whether the loss is sudden and unexpected, or if it is a long time coming, the grief that we feel in the moments, days, or even years after losing someone who is special to us will stay with us and continue to change us for the rest of our lives. In the multi-award winning documentary Transforming Loss, director Judith R. Burdick tells the stories of six individuals who have all been transformed in very different ways after losing the people they care about. While these individuals come from different backgrounds, after losing loved ones to various causes, their feelings of grief, although experienced and overcome in individual ways, are a unifying theme throughout the film that shows us how we all have the ability to overcome grief in our own way and to transform our loss into something meaningful.

The documentary itself is filmed in a simple style as it cycles through individual interviews of the six participants. In this way, we learn about the struggles of Molly, Ricki, Julia, Gary, Rachel and Virginia. Some were given time to say goodbye, like Julia, who lost her husband to terminal illness and had a chance to talk with him about his nearing end. Most of the participants had to deal with death suddenly, as was the case with Gary, who lost his wife and two sons in a car accident. But regardless of how loss crept into each person’s life, their stories show us that no one may ever be fully prepared to accept or understand death when it enters a person’s life.

Credit: transforminglossdocumentary.com

The grief that we feel in the moments, days, or even years after losing someone who is special to us will stay with us and continue to change us for the rest of our lives.

The film is broken up into three separate segments, each of which deals with a different aspect of grief. The film opens up with the Carl Jung quote, “I am not what happened to me…I am what I chose to become.” In the first part, each participant begins by talking about how they lost their loved ones. While the stories are different, their strength is the same, as they are all able to share their experience with the audience whilst maintaining the upmost composure.

In the second part of the film, each participant narrates their feelings as they move through the different stages of grief. In this segment, the differences among each speaker’s reactions show us that there is no wrong way to come to terms with your loss. While Molly recalled that “initially the anger was incredibly strong” as she reacted to the suicide of her husband, Rachel and her husband remark on the outrage they felt after losing their child in the hospital not long after his birth. During this part of the film, however, we see transformation take root. As these feelings of grief fade away, they are replaced with sympathy for those who have passed and overwhelming acceptance from friends, family, and even strangers who have sent letters of support.

While the stories are different, their strength is the same.

In the last part, each individual’s grief is transformed. At this stage you can see how the memory of a loved one can continue to motive the people who survive them, as is the case with each individual in the film. Here we watch Ricki work through her grief by becoming a personal trainer for her friend, while Virginia turns the death of her son into something positive by starting a scholarship foundation in his name. It is in this last stage that we see not only how life is possible after the death of a loved one, but that the experience can be harnessed positively to help both yourself and the community.

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