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“Honest Surrender”

September 17, 2023

For as long as I can remember, I have felt a certain kind of loneliness, an emptiness that I couldn’t put my finger on until recently. As a child, I often felt different from those around me. I was a half-Mexican child who looked fully Latina but was raised culturally White. I grew up in Houston, where I attended a Spanish-speaking congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an elementary school that was mostly Latino. I always felt out of place. I felt that my Latino peers were so connected to their Hispanic culture in a […]

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“Living with Ambiguous Loss”

September 16, 2023

From a workshop at the Exponent II Retreat in Fall 2022.Read by AuthorMy Journey with Ambiguous LossDeath has been on my mind for decades: my undergraduate thesis focused on James Agee’s A Death in the Family; one of my doctoral exams probed literary instances of death leading to beauty (elegy, last words, odes, etc.); dressing the body of a dear friend for burial over 20 years ago remains one of my most profound spiritual experiences; and on my mission in Colombia, I was struck by the ubiquitousness of fatality, as death notices were papered on lamp posts and fences, and […]

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“Waiting”

September 14, 2023

Read by AuthorThere is a distinct, sterile smell in every hospital. I think about the combination of cleaning supplies and latex gloves they must use to engineer this scent as I fidget with the notebook I brought to my mother-in-law’s oncology appointment. She is getting her test results back today and put me in charge of taking notes. The news seemed more likely to be bad than good. The nurse told us her doctor was running just a little late. All we needed to do was wait.* * *Two and a half years earlier, two significant things happened within a […]

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“Triumph”

September 11, 2023

These experiences led me to pull apart my intersectional masks one at a time and take on my rightful role with pride only made possible by loss.

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“Some Beginnings”

September 10, 2023

God said, have your dominion over the creeping things . . . So I captured a grasshopper and named him Luke.

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“Shoulder Kisses”

September 9, 2023

Our language doesn’t encompass or account for foster parenting . . .

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“Six Months to Live”

September 7, 2023

Six months to live. That was the diagnosis my dad received on July 2, 2012. He had retired just three days earlier from his job as an elementary school principal. Our whole family was together to celebrate his retirement after forty years of service. Dad was experiencing some back pain that weekend, so he went to get checked out. Unfortunately, they found lung cancer — spread throughout his body and into the bones. Stage 4. We were all in shock. My dad, the man I had looked up to as a hero my entire life, was a little bit broken. […]

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“Contemplations from Board Games”

September 1, 2023

My daughter genuinely rejoices that I “get more pellets than she does” and tries to hand me the toy figurine as the prize.

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“All Creatures”

August 28, 2023

It’s hard to tell the story of my life without telling the story of the animals that have surrounded me.

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“Complete Reconstruction // Reconstructing Completion”

June 15, 2023

Most of all I wonder why we only get to glean His wisdom from the end of the experience, instead of in the midst of His waiting and His need. What my soul yearns for is a modeling of the wait.

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Category: Essay

RESULTS

“Honest Surrender”

“Living with Ambiguous Loss”

“Waiting”

“Triumph”

“Some Beginnings”

“Shoulder Kisses”

“Six Months to Live”

“Contemplations from Board Games”

“All Creatures”

“Complete Reconstruction // Reconstructing Completion”

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