It has been some weeks since I’ve cried. Now, it is true that I broke down when trying to clean and install Lizzy’s bike seat for Cecilia. It is true, too, that I have become seasoned at swallowing my tears and stifling the sobs that swell up from inside of me with piercing regularity. But…
A strange peace has begun to pervade these past weeks. Grief for Lizzy is still omnipresent; all that needs to happen is a glance towards my shelf where I keep Lizzy’s things or a specific expression crosses Cecilia’s face, and the loss of Lizzy is renewed, fresh and abundant. I feel certain now that there…
Every day, as I walk Cecilia down for her naps in her stroller, I walk past endless baked and desiccated carcasses of earthworms. They die while trying to cross the hot, dry concrete of the sidewalks and then their flesh is washed away in the next rainfall or carried off by the industry of ants….
Happy Easter, everyone. Exactly a year ago today was Lizzy’s funeral. This is also my 100th post, and I have decided to finally make this blog public in the hopes that it can help someone else who is either grieving a child or even just asking the hard questions in the midst of this Coronavirus…
In September of 2018, Lizzy and I traveled to Florida to visit my grandparents for a week. My grandmother took us to the aquarium, where Lizzy pressed eager palms against the endless tanks of native fish, the dim blue light reflecting on her wide, gap-toothed smile. We reached into a shallow, circular tank to pet…
I think it’s fair to say that I have had very limited experience with the nature of evil, and I’d like to keep it that way. I have never consciously allowed myself to delve too deeply into the study of evil (despite its insinuating fascination) because my limited experience has been so disruptive and cancerous…
Two years ago, I nursed a one-year old Lizzy to sleep on the couch next to me while my then-husband and I watched a new sci-fi movie called Arrival. The movie flips conventional alien films on their head by portraying that aliens arrive peacefully in order to give a tool–not a weapon–to humanity because, in…
Paranoia is quickly becoming panic as the Coronavirus threat sweeps through the United States. I’m watching it happen with a curious apathy that looks a lot more like exhausted resignation than blind fear. It would be more logical, I suppose, to spend my days and nights in utter terror of losing Cecilia given the fact…
If you have come here seeking some faint shreds of hope, I will give you what I can: my honesty and my experience. It is true that you will never recover from the loss of your child. It will never get any easier. It will never be fixed or undone or remedied. You can never…
As a child, adults told me to “face my fear,” but I could never help thinking that if they actually knew what I was afraid of, they would tell me to run instead. Fear has been the ever-present phantom of my life: slithering through my childhood, seducing me in adolescence, and insinuating itself into my…