Models of grief: The bookshelf

Cherie Altea, an artist based in Singapore, created an image of a bookshelf to illustrate her thoughts on grief. 

In her own words:
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"Imagine that you are this bookshelf and grief were this thick, heavy and permanent book sitting in it.
 
Over time, that book doesn’t change in shape or size. It just stays there and becomes a part of you. As the days and years pass, your library grows around it as everything you add to the shelf becomes another chapter and dimension in your life. The grief, even if you choose to gloss over it, is an indelible presence juxtaposed with the growing collection of things.
 
The spine might fade in the sunlight, yellowing pages will fall out, and its cover will definitely gather dust, but our grief is a book whose pages we can flip through and go back to when we feel compelled to. Without changing in weight, significance or meaning, it shall always and simply be another facet of our existence and one of many stories in our constantly changing life."