August 2025 – Grief Unspoken

My sweet cousin died in June. It was a long road for her. It was a long road for all of us who adored her. She was so adored. Such sweet, soft, big blue eyes …. they almost looked sad like they somehow knew the end she would have one day. People were so drawn to her … maybe because of her big blue eyes, maybe because she was disarmingly witty or maybe because people connected with the sadness that was just behind her eyes. Lindsay didn’t talk about sadness though. It wasn’t like her to complain. Not in this family. In this family, we suck it up and keep going. Maybe it’s the German in us. Maybe it’s the denial in us. Maybe it’s because there wasn’t anywhere safe enough to say it all or feel it all. Whatever it was, Lindsay lived it and died it. And I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since it started. I keep trying to tell this story in a way that wraps it up in some sort of beautiful, redemptive bow. She was so beautiful. Her life made so much sense. It just will not be wrapped.

I recently tore down a burlap sign I had made years ago that said “redemption”. I stapled it high up on the wall that leads to our living room. That word meant so much to me. I thought it promised that one day, all that was wrong would be made right. Every year, that sign mocked me. Finally, a couple months ago I was so done with it, I ripped it down. It feels good not to have its beady little eyes looking down at me anymore.

Losses can feel insurmountable. Many of us here in the hill country are still reeling from the flash floods on the Fourth of July. One of you sweet people said it so well: “I’m nearly paralyzed with the magnitude of it”. Others of you know people who were lost and you are grieving. Still others of you are showing up to help practically for the people, for the animals, for the community by clearing debris, bringing food, offering funds, counseling and your heartfelt care. Wherever you are in this story, we are all in the unbearable horror of it together. And we are all grieving.

This I know: There are no answers. Things will not be wrapped up with a bow. Life keeps going on. Without Lindsay. Without 138 flood victims. Without your people. Without my people. Without so many others we’ve lost to unspeakable, unfathomable, irretrievable things.

So I will live without the bow. I’ve surrendered to the mess. I’m not pretending. I cannot fix this. But I’m here. With you. With me. I am believing in the belonging, the connection, the transformation, the meaning that can emerge through loss. I’ll be watching for it. For you. For me. For my family. For my people.

If you want to be in spaces where grief is welcome, where nothing has to be tied up in a bow or polished, where sadness always has room to breathe, here are a few places I will be this month:

The Art Way on Friday, August 8 at Old School MakerSpace from 10 am – 1 pm – https://www.theartwaysa.org/
NAMI Pathways to Hope Conference on Friday and Saturday, August 22 and 23 at The Tobin Performing Arts Center https://www.pathwaystohope.us/
Wild Heart Community – https://www.wildheart.space/
I will always be here creating space where sorrow and madness have safety and room to be shared.

You are welcome to bring yours here.

And I will be watching for the faithful, eventual promised growth Maya Angelou believed would one day come:

“When great souls die ….. after a period ….. peace blooms …… slowly and always ….irregularly”