Naming Both
Five days before the wedding, the mother of the groom dies from wounds sustained in a car accident. Reeling in shock, the family adds another event to their already full week: a funeral. On Friday, they bury their mother; on Saturday, they add a daughter-in-law. I heard this tragic story of friends-of-friends years ago, and […]
It’s Not Supposed to Be Like This
A year ago, I had to give up breastfeeding my five-month old baby. No matter what I removed from my diet, he was still sick with food allergy symptoms and amoebas he couldn’t shake. When I bought that first can of formula and gave him a bottle, I felt like a failure. My body was […]
He Names and Knows Our Loss
It comes in the quietest of moments and also in ones so publicly inconvenient. I swallow and avert my eyes, intentionally trying to push away the words that want to flow into an unrelated conversation or from a memory triggered through something insignificant. It can come like a wave and I could choke on it […]
This Week’s Theme: Naming
We could each start with a blank piece of paper or journal page and fill it up quickly with our experiences from this last year. And then if we dig a little deeper, we could pull out the emotions, the losses, the triumphs, the grief. There is power in naming. We name our joys and […]