the /grace/ between
The grace poured out between.
On the Physical Nature of Grief
So here’s my new semi-terrible discovery. There is a nonlinear expression in the physical nature of grief, not just the intellectual and emotional, and nearing the anniversary of my daddy’s death, the two are not working in concert. Not at all. My body has...
Poured Out Like Water
2021 feels like a lament, a sacrifice, a burnt offering of time and sanity and presence. A series of goodbyes, both to the tangible and to the what-could-have-been. I haven’t been much of a friend. Or a mother, or a wife, or even a writer. I am stretched between...
The Five Stages of Grief
No matter what there is to say about grief, it's already been said. Still, this is new for us, so I am going to repeat them all. The Five Stages of Grief denial anger bargaining depression acceptance Denial The first week after dad died, I was mostly numb,...
My Father, An Unusual Man.
{Most of you know this already, but my father, David Anthony Maddox, passed away on February 13, 2021. Below is a slightly edited version of the remarks I made at his funeral. I can't bring myself to say anymore.} I’ve thought about this moment many times. I’m a...
Post Partum Update Part 1
{I originally wrote this at the beginning of Dec, but posting it here for posterity. Time for some real talk, the COVID postpartum edition. While my physical recovery has been the easiest one yet (go figure-5th kid and old lady pregnancy and my body is all “we got...
Welcome to the World
2020 is the year no one saw coming. A gut-wrenching, life-altering cascade of events that no one has escaped from unscathed. Even as I started writing this, it was Election Day, your birth day, in a deeply divisive season of discord, an election that even now is...
Hush A Bye, my darling girl. A birthday letter.
(On the occasion of Darling Girl's fifth birthday. Every night she insists I sing the Peter Paul & Mary version of Hush-A-Bye. She can't go to sleep without it.) Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleep you little baby. When you wake you shall have all the pretty...
An Open Letter to Teachers in 2020
School is out for all of us now. Did you know I wept through the wave parade you threw for our children? I cried for the sacrifices you made and for what you lost this year as well. You may have missed out on Field days and sticky goodbyes and end of year parties...
Prepare Him Room: Making Space
Somewhere around the beginning of December every year, my family would drive to Clarksville, Georgia, and cut down our Christmas tree. Even now I can close my eyes and draw you an exact map of Purcell’s Christmas Tree Farm, from the garage where we sweet-talked...