Janice Hijerica performs three original spoken-word pieces exploring the journey through grief and loss, from the raw weight of pain woven into daily life, to finding small moments of joy that sustain survival, to a final piece titled ‘Release’ about relinquishing expectation and discovering unexpected hope. Her work traces a personal arc from being overwhelmed by grief to a place of earned acceptance and peace.
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Transcript
[01:39:53] Hey, give it up for her one more time, yo. Give it up for her.
[01:39:56] Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Alright. Yes, I know who that is, but she’s probably gonna get mad at me
[01:40:05] because I don’t know how to pronounce her last name, so that’s a problem. I’m gonna lose points.
[01:40:10] As long as you got the first name.
[01:40:12] Coming to the stage.
[01:40:14] A friend of mine, Janice.
[01:40:24] Thank you.
[01:40:27] His girlfriend is watching and she’s my best friend, so there’s that.
[01:40:33] My last name is Hijerica, in case you guys are wondering. Sorry, I’m trying to…
[01:40:37] There we go.
[01:40:39] I kind of wrote three pieces. They’re within the timeframe.
[01:40:43] Don’t worry.
[01:40:44] Sorry, I’m a rule follower, but I’m reminding him to set the timer.
[01:40:49] The first two are about navigating pain and grief.
[01:40:54] Something I think we can all pretty much identify with.
[01:40:57] And the last one is just about kind of releasing that.
[01:41:00] So, sorry to bring the mood down.
[01:41:02] Glad we had some comedy before.
[01:41:05] Alright.
[01:41:08] I’ve been in pain so long.
[01:41:11] It’s woven into my skin.
[01:41:13] In order to survive, I needed a part of me.
[01:41:17] Plastered it to my DNA.
[01:41:19] On my commute to work, the air is quiet.
[01:41:23] My soul mimics the stillness.
[01:41:26] Time bows towards me.
[01:41:28] Grieving seizes the rarity of this moment.
[01:41:32] Compared to last year, grief is different.
[01:41:35] I’m now in control of when the tears fall.
[01:41:38] I drive through a green light and focus on the sound of my car’s engine.
[01:41:42] The tears flow, but this time, it’s like a river.
[01:41:47] No longer the hurricane from before.
[01:41:50] Sadness dances to the beat of my heart.
[01:41:53] They are now in sync.
[01:41:55] Grief reminds me that I am its home.
[01:41:58] I don’t dismiss it.
[01:42:00] I’m no longer angry that it’s here.
[01:42:03] I wearily accept this new skin.
[01:42:06] I give way.
[01:42:08] Peacefully.
[01:42:09] Willingly.
[01:42:11] I whisper to my heart, it won’t always be this way.
[01:42:15] My hopeful little prayer that keeps me going.
[01:42:18] I park my car and I walk into the hospital.
[01:42:21] My pain slowly folds back into my heart.
[01:42:24] I bury it there.
[01:42:26] It goes gently.
[01:42:28] Pain no longer fights me.
[01:42:30] I take a deep breath.
[01:42:31] I enter the door.
[01:42:33] I smile and I laugh boisterously with people.
[01:42:36] Pain blends into peace.
[01:42:38] I can’t feel where the pain begins
[01:42:40] or where it ends until my community home.
[01:42:53] I live in a house of grief.
[01:42:56] But I laugh today.
[01:42:58] The sound echoed against the walls, but they stood firm.
[01:43:02] I don’t expect them to quiver.
[01:43:04] Not anymore.
[01:43:06] Instead, I adapt.
[01:43:08] I bend and curl my body into the present.
[01:43:11] Forcing my existence into the sound of my joy.
[01:43:15] Although fleeting, it keeps me alive.
[01:43:18] I try and savor the moment.
[01:43:21] The moments.
[01:43:23] The way his skin feels against mine.
[01:43:27] Hearing my mom say a simple hello.
[01:43:30] My dad’s ten-year-old joke.
[01:43:33] The way the air smells in October at 6 a.m.
[01:43:37] Making eye contact with my brother’s dog.
[01:43:41] Walking across the stage in heels.
[01:43:44] The safety felt when I hugged my best friends.
[01:43:48] The mundane.
[01:43:49] The extraordinary.
[01:43:51] Seconds spill into transformative minutes.
[01:43:55] They all keep me alive.
[01:43:58] Thank you.
[01:44:00] So those first two were written like at a time in my life where I was processing a lot of loss and grief and heaviness and just working my way through that.
[01:44:15] And then kind of out of all of that like really, really hard year came this next poem called Release.
[01:44:24] We plant too often with expectation.
[01:44:28] You all labored.
[01:44:29] I did too.
[01:44:31] But the seeds owe us nothing.
[01:44:34] We burden them with impatience.
[01:44:37] Demand a timely harvest from the soil.
[01:44:40] But the seeds belong to themselves.
[01:44:43] Flowers do not always bloom.
[01:44:46] Sometimes roots die.
[01:44:49] But friend, your effort is not in vain.
[01:44:52] Your work does not go unfulfilled.
[01:44:55] Your investment gets returned.
[01:44:58] In unexpected hope.
[01:45:00] In cultivated patience.
[01:45:03] In restored humility.
[01:45:05] In gentleness, a new language on your tongue.
[01:45:09] In these gifts we need to live.
[01:45:12] Thank you very much.