rebelling against low expectations
My heart ached as I stared down into the freshly dug grave. Oh, how dark the muddy, cold earth looked around the little box that held my cousin’s stillborn baby girl. Death had come to our family again and in a crushing defeat. No joy would come, no hopeful celebration of a new little life. It was all taken away from a family who would have loved and cherished her. Death. The separator of close...
Everybody has a different way of mourning. Some stay quiet and to themselves, blocking out the world. Some try to brush it off and hang out with friends, so they don’t feel the pain so strongly. Some laugh it off, pretending they don’t care. Yet still others take you into their confidence and tell you all that they are thinking. There is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to comforting your...
When I had nightmares as a kid, my mom would walk me through strategies to help me calm down. She taught me to count my blessings and recite Bible verses until the panic receded and I could fall back asleep. Recently, my papa passed away from cancer, and one night the grief trapped me. Here I was living in a nightmare, but I didn’t have any strategies to ease the pain. Through tears, I couldn’t...
“It’s time.” I swallowed those dreaded words, trying to accept them. Process them. Shifting in a wooden chair across a small metal table from the veterinarian, I nodded, and stroked Darcy’s soft black ear. I’d just spent the last twenty minutes explaining how my sweet Mr. Darcy had rapidly declined in recent days. Kidney disease had stolen his appetite and caused his body to reject what little...
June is well underway; graduation parties, proms, grad walks, and ceremonies are all happening around you. For many people, this is exciting and meaningful, a way to mark the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. But for others, this time of year can be hard, because they never got those things. It makes me think of milestones I passed by with little thought. My family had just moved when I...
Since I was small, I have loved poetry. The way it doesn’t just tell you something but helps you to see and feel it too. I’ve tried my hand at poetry many times, one such occasion was last Christmas. If there’s any time of year that lends itself to poetry, it’s Christmas. I sat on the sofa, staring at the tree, my pen poised above the paper. Half an hour later these stanzas looked at me from the...
Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy. It’s what all the Hallmark movies tell us, with their over-the-top decorations and picture-perfect events. It’s what all the songs talk about (It’s the most wonderful time of the year, right?) It’s advertised on every commercial and ad: if we just buy this or do that or decorate just so, we’ll be happy and we’ll have the best Christmas ever. Yet rather...
On August 8th, 2021, around nine in the evening, I received the call I had been dreading. My mom’s voice was shaky and quiet at the other end as she broke the news. Mema was gone. Our family had been waiting for her to pass away—we knew the end was near—for eight days. We said our goodbyes during visits to the hospice house where she was staying. My grief is still raw. It hurts to think about her...
Sometimes, life comes at you with a punch to the soul. If you wonder if you’ve ever felt it, chances are you haven’t. But there are those of you who may have felt a twinge of pain when you read those words. Maybe your bruising and bleeding is still raw as you press your hand to your gut to staunch the pain and forget again. Lift your head and look around you. Take a breath and let it out slow...
When you hear the word dream, what immediately comes to mind? For me it’s Disney’s 2010 animated film “Tangled.” The humorous, perilous, and romantic retelling of the classic Rapunzel fairytale is all about dreams– chasing dreams, worthy dreams, frivolous dreams, and dreams coming true. We all have dreams, childhood longings, and future hopes. You may find yourself staring out into...
rebelling against low expectations
