Where I struggled most was with deciding whether or not to craft a section where David speaks directly during the brief hours between his suicidal action and his death. Giving him space to speak felt almost urgent. Yet, it also felt presumptuous on my part.

Cyra Sweet Dumitru – 7 September 2024

The Back Flap

As a teenager, Cyra witnessed her eldest brother David’s tragic suicide, an event that left her shattered. She shares her journey of recovery, tracing her path through decades of creative expression, spiritual discovery, and the gradual rebuilding of her life. Through writing poetry, journaling, and swimming, Cyra learns to heal, finding solace in a transcendent presence called Voice, and ultimately transforms her grief into personal empowerment. Her words shine a light on the impact of losing a loved one to suicide and emphasize the importance of breaking the stigma around suicide, encouraging open dialogue and stronger support networks for families affected by such loss.

About Words Make a Way Through Fire

Words Make a Way Through Fire is a memoir told through poetry and prose that chronicles my decades-long journey of transforming traumatic memory into a creative  life. While the book includes my process of reckoning, which sometimes is pretty raw, it emphasizes the healing influences of writing, swimming as meditation, and the intuited guidance of a spiritual presence called Voice.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the book began when I wrote the poem “The Faceless Day” at the age of nineteen. I was an undergraduate at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and enrolled in a poetry writing course. My emotional life was in turmoil. Three years earlier, I had witnessed my eldest brother’s fiery suicide at our family home. The sensory trauma of the experience had fractured my psyche deeply, causing me to dissociate at times. At that point I had no language for my confused feelings. My capacity to grieve the loss of my brother was impeded. My capacity to trust myself was impeded. Feeling overwhelmed by this traumatic experience and feeling shame around my helplessness in the face of David’s suffering, I was numbing my inward ache with alcohol and marijuana.

Fortunately, I was also writing poems with guidance from the poetry writing class and journaling, which helped me begin to express my tangled feelings, and to tell my story. When “The Faceless Day” surfaced in me and began to speak, it made clear that my creative way forward was committing to writing, thus learning to trust my instincts. The wisdom of the poem, embedded within a strange metaphor, changed the trajectory of my life; it propelled me to embrace poetry and narrative writing as lifelong practices. Bringing language to my pain and confusion stopped my steady slide into substance abuse. Gradually, I found clarity.

I kept writing poems and journaling about all kinds of experiences for the next twenty years, including my ongoing resolve to recover fully from bearing traumatic witness. When I was about 38, another poem called “Gift of Fire” surfaced and gave me a safe way to talk directly about what I had seen and heard the night of David’s suicide. I felt an inward, healing shift as I wrote the poem. At first, I had to describe David’s suicide and death to purge the traumatic sensations. Once I did so within the frame of a spiritual metaphor, I was free to focus instead upon David’s life: his experiences as I knew them, his personality and gifts, our ongoing relationship that transcended his death. This freed me to write more expansively.   started writing chapters as well as more poems.

Now the mother of two small children, I was witnessing young lives unfold, experiencing wonder again and delight in simple beauties. I realized that memories of my childhood were fading as new memories of my childrens’ emergence permeated my heart and mind. So, I began writing narratively as much as I could recall about my shared childhood and adolescence with my brother David. This is when the memoir really took root, found an initial voice and structure. I probably worked on that draft intermittently for about a year.

What came most easily were the many poems. Poetry is such a natural way of thinking, feeling, and breathing. I think in images and physical sensations, and I cherish metaphors that give me insightful perspective. Arranging line breaks and stanza breaks too is a meditative and playful practice for me, full of pauses for breath and discovery.

As I told my story over time, I turned to pages of journal entries that documented years of dreams as well as the process and benefit of a counseling intervention. And, my surviving parents and two brothers graciously supported my effort, sharing stories and answering questions as I wrote, even though the subject matter was inherently painful to us all.

Where I struggled most was with deciding whether or not to craft a section where David speaks directly during the brief hours between his suicidal action and his death. Giving him space to speak felt almost urgent. Yet, it also felt presumptuous on my part. How could I possibly know what went through his mind and heart during those final hours? I considered this question for several weeks. Decided against doing so as I couldn’t be sure it was accurate; it would be purely an act of informed imagination. One day, a voice propelled me to sit down and start writing. The decision was made for me, and I knew to listen, let it flow through me. Once it started, it took but a few weeks, coming out in long waves of words. It kept growing!  I felt companioned by a larger presence, perhaps David’s spirit? Since I had already written about shared experiences with him, I could explore these experiences from his imagined point of view—this was a kind of accuracy.

Eventually, my mother bravely read a well-developed draft of the extended monologue. She came to me the next morning with tears in her eyes and said, “It sounds like David!” Who better than Mother to affirm the sound of my brother’s voice!  I accepted the monologue as part of the emerging book, and it is the one section that changed very little through many rounds of manuscript revision.

My Writing Process

 The book fully emerged over the course of 27 years. I experienced long intervals of deep attention to raising children, working as an independent medical writer, teaching college writing, providing writing as healing courses and circles during which the memoir waited. From time to time, I edited and revised existing narrative portions. Yet, I sensed that I needed more life experience before I could complete the book.

I did not outline. I believe strongly in trusting what arises as I write, and then editing later. I allow the writing to be for me first, without concern for an audience. What became clear to me in the earliest years of compiling the memoir is that I was healing myself through the writing process. By telling my story, giving my experience shape and depth, I created meaningfulness. I gradually gentled the fierceness of my trauma. I forgave myself and forgave David, developed a friendship with my brother’s memory. This was an immeasurable gift that had nothing to do with publishing.

Once I found the deepest frame for telling my story about seven years ago, I made the inward commitment to publish the story. That was when I imagined my readers as people who have lost a loved one to suicide, people grieving complicated loss, people who have witnessed traumatic acts, people open to healing through writing, as well as counselors and spiritual directors who serve people recovering from trauma.

In March of 2020, I was given the blessing of a paid, month-long writing residency in South Texas on a private ranch. During this time, I devoted six to ten hours a day refining the language of existing chapters, adding new insights, and developing several new chapters. Part two fully emerged, which emphasizes spiritual experiences involving Voice, powerful moments I have witnessed where other people have experienced healed through writing poetry, and the importance of swimming as a healing practice. During this residency, I began each day by writing a haiku, which then became a new spiritual practice that revitalized my daily energy.

Soon after the writing residency, I felt the manuscript to be at a highly developed phase. That was when I engaged the services of a gifted, developmental editor. Jenn was instrumental in helping me clarify chapters and passages. She affirmed the overall organization of the chapters which was quite reassuring. As my first deeply attentive reader, Jenn affirmed the value of sharing my story with a broader audience.

About Publishing

I never seriously considered finding an agent; as a poet it simply didn’t occur to me. I submitted the manuscript to several independent presses as part of contests and became discouraged. I wasn’t getting any younger, and I wanted to be very involved in all the design and marketing steps. Once I discovered She Writes Press, I knew that it offered a realistic and supportive path into my decision to publish this lifework. This publishing path has taken considerable time and energy, yet it is also empowering and fascinating which I appreciate tremendously. Working with She Writes Press has been a true partnership, and I value collaboration highly.

As for the cover image, I knew that I wanted my father’s photograph of David and me as young children on the front cover. It is such a tender and unusual photo. If a viewer looks carefully, this image conveys the relational depth of my connection to my brother. Before I signed the contract with my press, I expressed my commitment to the photo for the cover. The publisher considered it and agreed. When it came time for cover design, I was offered several options: one of which was the childhood photo modified to look as if we are rising out of water, and tinted a twilight blue. While I liked one of the other designs too, this one blew me away!  It conveys so much about the book: my relationship to David, and my relationship to water as counterpoint to his relationship to fire. I was able to tell my father before his recent death that his photo would grace the front cover. This was deeply meaningful to me, to Dad, and to my surviving brothers.

I have a publicity team helping me to connect with influencers and reviewers, bloggers and writers as I don’t engage in social media. I have a carefully designed website: www.cyrasweetdumitru.com and I have initiated multiple conversations with organizations in various cities who provide services to families who have lost a loved one to suicide, and with bereavement organizations who believe in the healing power of the expressive arts. I want my book, my story to contribute to larger positive conversations about recovering from trauma through creative practices.

A Little Bit More About Me

 While I grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut and Cincinnati, Ohio, I have lived in San Antonio, Texas for more than forty years. I am part of an amazing network of writers locally and nationally who nurture and inspire one another. I am also certified through the Institute for Poetic Medicine as a practitioner of poetic medicine, one of four such practitioners in Texas. It is my privilege and joy to create spaces for individuals and small groups where people can hear their souls, hear their hearts and minds speak what is most true, and let it surface, find shape and be affirmed by a listening, loving community. I find great joy in facilitating and witnessing other people heal through writing poetry and telling their stories.

I am also at work with my fifth collection of poetry called Drought in the Time of Dementia, which chronicles the final years of my divorced parents as they struggled with cognitive impairments before their deaths. I am profoundly grateful that the poem “The Faceless Day” convinced me decades ago to make writing a vital part of my life.  As a result, I am a much more whole, creative, spiritual, joyful, and outwardly responsive human being.

End of Interview:

Get your copy of Words Make a Way Through Fire from Amazon US.