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Whose Hands Are We In?
Written: October 2, 2025 I visited a friend today. She answered the door with a mostly naked, almost 1-year old baby on her hip. I cheered him on as he pushed his red wagon across the floor, nearly walking. I watched him crawl into the kitchen and babble “mama”. I got to rub his back…
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It’s Still the Beginning
Written: August 11, 2025 In the beginning, I remember hearing, “Early grief is the first two years.” In the beginning, I remember wondering, “How could anyone bear this pain for years?” We are no longer at that beginning, but still, it is the beginning. And I continue to wonder, “How did we bear this pain for a…
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It’s Taking a Long Time
Written: December 19, 2024 & July 3 2024 As we pull out of the cemetery, I look in the rearview mirror at my almost three-year-old talking to me. “I don’t want Gemma to be in the hole in the ground.” Tears fall from my eyes and my knuckles turn white as I grip the steering…
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A Silent Scream
Written: June 5th, 2025 Do you hear it?Someone is screaming – I think. But I am smiling. I hear the echo of it once again. Who is screaming?No one turns to look with me.No face wears signs of alarm around me. Yet I feel a weight beginning to press on my chest. It couldn’t be me. – I’m smiling.…
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Can suffering produce any good?
Since Gemma passed, I see in my life that my capacities for gratefulness, love, joy and the ability to see beauty have enlarged. Suffering has filled these cups to the brim and they now overflow. I’m slowing down not just because of the burden of loss, but because my eyes now wear the lens of…
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I Will Look for You
For my Gemma Rose. Happy 6 month birthday. I love you Little Dove. A bundle and a hatA swollen eyeFaces side by side“Hello Gemma”And then…A sideways glanceOut of the one open eyeA moment of recognitionAt the sound of my voiceYou know your momma.Now locked inYou found me. IV’s Hinder movementBut not loveAs I cradle you…
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My Body Remembers
Written: February 6, 2025 Another clump of hair clings to the shower wall. It’s been days of this.My hairbrush is full. I tear out the strands daily. I can tell my hair is thinning. This is a normal occurrence post-partum, to shed hair.It’s occurred with all three of my babies.Previously only a minor inconvenience Highlighting the abundance…
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Psalm 123 Remixed
Our Eyes Look to the Lord Our God To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress,so our eyes look to the…
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We Met Five Months Ago
I sit here five months away from that terrible and beautiful day you were born. The day that started us on this path of separation. But it’s also the day I found out you had beautiful thick hair and fuzzy little shoulders.
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I’m Trying to Carry Her
Written: December 6 2024 In the beginning I kept trying to memorialize her, I still do. But right after losing her I thought that maybe a beautiful ring with her birthstone on it would be enough to feel like I am carrying her with me – to heal. This sounds foolish and insane, but I…
A Mother's Lament 