Browsing the "Grief" Tag

Loss

In a photo from 1984, a mother with large glasses rests her chin on the shoulder of her young pigtailed daughter, looking at her warmly

A Long, Long Way from Home

January 25th, 2022 | by Anna Villegas

You understand that what displaces you from full citizenship on the earth is the loss of an attachment you never had


Loss

Shoplifting at Bloomingdales

November 19th, 2021 | by Jennifer Baum

Rumor was, at that time in the 1970s, Bloomingdales was the hottest pick up joint in town.


Loss

Photo of a father holding his toddler daughter, circa the early 1980s

In the World Where My Father Is Dying

August 24th, 2021 | by Jennifer Samson-Acker

In the world before my father was dying, hospitals were hopeful, exciting, and filled with surprise—jelly smeared on my growing uterus, ultrasounds listening for the thump, thump, thump


Mind

When Grief Won’t Fit

December 11th, 2019 | by Elizabeth Muller

From the time of her diagnosis, my daughter had been discussed in a language used for illness. But none of the words fit the way I felt



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  • “You’ve already told me that story,” he said. Switching gears, he asked, “Why isn’t my father around?” #breastfeeding #parenting #fuckit #protest #teenagers #sexualviolence “Over time, Anabelle learned to talk about her feelings. She said saw her birthmother in the sky. She drew a picture of grief moving through her body like water. When she had more language, she began to talk about her losses.” “I’m not sure why I read that poster and thought that it applied to other mothers, other people’s children. But it probably has something to do with the shock I felt two years later when a neurologist confidently diagnosed “Autism Spectrum Disorder” and I responded with at least twenty “What about…” type questions. I had described my dynamic, interesting, loving toddler to this doctor, and her response sounded dire and clinical. That poster was the same. All of it seemed so unfortunate.” “Someone hit the call button. No one came. Someone rushed to the nurses’ station; still no one came. The contractions, a creature, twisted my uterus, lancing its nails. I tried to breathe through them, but there was no space, no time.” “But when, one-by-one, natural disasters ransacked too many of the communities we visited, including my home-state of California, I began to spiral into a grief I didn’t know how to support. I came to realize that our climate crisis wasn’t off in some far-flung future. It was here. Now. I’d birthed two perfectly good humans, boys who wanted to set up lemonade stands and play soccer, but who would be tasked instead to worry about rising seas and firestorms.” “I have to say,” my doctor said. We were still in the OR. He seemed saddened. “There was a uterine rupture. A large one. I have only seen something like this four times in my career.” “This is the part where I am supposed to articulate that taking time for myself allows me to be a better a parent, which is true. But the compulsion to footnote derives from accepting the baseline that I should feel guilty at all for taking time for myself, which I do not. I’d meet my pals for dinner, go to a movie alone, or attend a weekend bachelorette trip even if it resulted in worse parenting. Parents deserve pleasures unattached to their children.”

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