What SuSaw

ht @30words30images

For the New York Times, author, teacher and convener, Hope Edelman writes about the long-term effects of childhood grief. Her mom died when Hope was just 17. Recently, Stephen Colbert and Cooper Anderson shared their childhood experiences with major loss. I cannot imagine the sadness that brings to a child.

Borrowing from Hope with a bit of poetic license, here’s how I look at loss:

Grief is something that isn’t “gotten over” in the service of “moving on.”

Although I was 35 when my mom died 21 years ago yesterday, I think of her every.single.day. And as a mother myself, every day is mother’s day. Yet now, for me it’s about my being a mom to my mostly grown-up kids. It’s not about having had a mom. And really, as nuts as my mom was, I miss her. A lot. The pain is less, the memories fade but she had a presence that lives on within me.

Solopsis.

noun

1. Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.

2. extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

Nature’s beauty and power, for this self, says there is so much more than just us.

When Hermione met @30words30images. Iconic.

adjective UK /aɪˈkɒn.ɪk/ US /aɪˈkɑː.nɪk/ formal

very famous or popular, especially being considered to represent particular opinions or a particular time:

Fernweh (n.) A German word for a strong desire to travel and visit far off places. Wanderlust. Literal translation “far-sickness,” as in the opposite of homesickness.