Why I Started Drawing Again: A Mini Graphic Memoir

About me, my grief, and what made me start drawing comics again

Today is the eleven-month anniversary of my friend Annie’s death, and I wanted people know what that’s like, so I drew a comic about it:

My friend Annie died eleven months ago today. This piece has been swimming inside me for weeks, but I finally got it to a place where it feels ready to share. 

I got the idea to create this strip when I listened to a song by Amanda Palmer, one of my favorite art monsters on this lonely planet. It’s called The Ballad of the New York Times, and right now it’s only available to her patrons. But if you’re craving some good-grief-ness, it could have easily been so many of her songs from her album There Will Be No Intermission.

Annie and I went to that concert in New York together in 2019, which feels like decades ago. The album is about abortion and parenthood and grief and acceptance, and it’s no wonder it became the soundtrack to Annie’s illness and death last year. There are stretches of road between Annie’s house and mine that will always have Amanda Palmer’s lyrics in the background. Even now, I turn it on if I need a good cry.

Something about the new song also made my grief feel closer, not so terrifying—like I was sharing an island with more than just myself, alone in a car full of groceries.

So now, the grief.

Losing someone like Annie—someone who’s bound up in the daily netting of your life—is a death of so many things, including the death of my old self.

Most of the time, our old selves die so slowly that we hardly notice. It’s easy to see that I’m not the person I was ten years ago—that death wasn’t as sudden as when Annie was plucked out of my life. 

In the eleven months since she died, I feel like I’ve aged a century.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Annie died as part of some cosmic scheme to make me start drawing again, or to bring more altruism into the world by breaking all our hearts. She was such a potent force when she was alive—it’s madness to assume that the world is better off without her, that her death could change the world so much more than her life could.

And yet, if there’s any mercy in her death, it’s that I do feel softer these days.

I cry, too, when I read the news. And I don’t diet anymore. I almost never wear makeup. I cut my hair all by myself over the bathroom sink. 

I don’t yell when the cat claws at the furniture. I go on long walks. I cry when I watch TikToks. I stay up late and worry about all the things that might hurt the people I love. I make tea whenever I feel like it.

I say I love you. God, it’s so cheesy, but I really do.

I love you. 

I love you, I love you, I love you.

I also drew one panel that I didn’t end up putting into the final strip that I thought I’d share here.

It’s a drawing of me on the day of Annie’s funeral. This was in the spring, months after her death, when more people were vaccinated. That day was hard and beautiful and chilling and bizarre all at once. We were all together, sitting on the lawn, just talking and eating sandwiches. It felt for everything like Annie should have been there, too.

At one point, I felt so overwhelmed by the grief and the sandwiches, that I had to leave. I made a little island behind the funeral home and cried beneath some juniper trees. This was that moment:

I think it was the right choice to leave this panel out of the final strip (for lots of reasons—pacing, composition, color) but it still feels like an important part of my grief story. It was such a lonely instant—so sharp and devastating, when all I wanted was softness and relief. It wasn’t a tidy moment, and I didn’t feel especially strong or brave then.

I do now, knowing what it took to show up that day, and all the days after.

I hope you liked this story. As always, thank you for being here.

I love you. (Really).

- 🖤Becca Lee, the Haunted Librarian🖤

PS - there are still one or two prints left in the shop if you want one.

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