Let me introduce myself. My name is Chenea’. I live under the big, Arizona, desert sky. It’s under this sky that in August 2024, I experienced one of the greatest joys and agonies of my life when I met my third daughter and then held her as she died 10 days later. She is my set apart treasure, with a head full of glorious brown hair.

Her name is Gemma Rose and these are my love songs for her.

Thank you for being brave enough to enter this sacred space of tears, agony, and even joy with me.

This space is here for several reasons:

1. A legacy for Gemma and a healing space for me as I live without her: There is not much I get to do as Gemma’s mother. Writing has been a gift to me, both my own and reading others. Words have given me a way to wade through the deep valley of Gemma’s death. Honest and, hopefully, beautiful words have given me a way to honor my daughter and to wrestle with God.
2. A hopeful comfort for others on the “mourning bench” of child loss: A friend bought and dropped off the book “Lament for a Son” by Nicholas Wolterstorff for my husband and I. Greedy for anything that may breathe life into my gasping lungs I consumed the entire book in one sitting. Wolferstorff gave me not just any words, but beautiful ones, to convey the dark night of my soul after Gemma’s death. I found someone giving justice to the depth of my pain and confusion with their own words. Wolterstorff, and the Scriptures, gave me permission to write freely and intentionally my pain. Though I am no Wolferstorff, I pray that in some way my own cries would offer a miniscule amount of that comfort to others.
3. A place where grief isn’t quieted and others can step inside to understand more deeply and to come alongside those who are grieving: We live in a world that wants to hide the grieving. They make us feel uncomfortable and we often feel ill-equipped to walk along the rocky path they trudge. Please, walk this path with me here so that you can better walk the path with your loved one where you are.

You should know that I am a follower of Jesus, and though faith is not explicitly a part of everything I write, it will show its face, and every word has been poured out before Him. I hope whether you identify with Him or not, you find a space here that gives words to the great injustice of death and grief.

Our loved ones deserve a beautiful, love-song of lament.

For my Gemma Rose, my treasured beauty, my little Dove, I long for the day when my singing over you is no longer filled with tears.