Keeping your heart open while it's breaking

Twice in the past few months, people I love have experienced losses so devastating that my grief has made me gag. For over a week, each time, vomit filled my throat, my chest heavy with nausea. The first: the fast and cruel death of my friend Alison from colon cancer.

The second: my friend Jill’s 8-year-old daughter — named Sarah after Jill’s best friend who died from cancer — died at Camp Mystic in the Texas flooding. I do not need to explain why this is impossible. You are already imagining it.

with Jill and Sarah in 2019

In the weeks since Sarah’s death, I have watched Jill do something that has been a lesson to me about what we can choose to do with attention.

People have their gazes fixed on Jill, and she has diverted some of their focus elsewhere: to the mistreatment and degradation of immigrants. She has shared stories of the rescue teams who came in from Mexico to find the missing people in Texas. She has pointed to the cruelty of immigration detention. She has reminded people that dehumanizing others corrodes our own humanity.

There is no right or wrong way to endure this kind of agonizing loss, but what an example of having your heart break and still keeping it open.

So, while I have you here, at my newsletter, may I remind you of this:

The US is participating in the mass murder of Palestinian people. Every day, there are new stories about starving people being shot in Gaza while they try to access food. We are providing the bombs that kill them.

Our own humanity is so solid and detailed to us. Our breakfast and poor sleep and allergies and camp schedule. But we are not uniquely human. Every person has those details, even if forced to spend their days on the lowest level of Maslow’s hierarchy.

I know. It’s impossible. And what can we do?

Here’s what I’ve been doing (not enough).

1. Donating

2. Emailing my elected officials every day. I still vote in North Carolina, and I email my congresswoman and two senators every morning. I say something new every day. It takes less than 10 minutes. If you want to do this, let me know and I can help you get set up.

May you find it in yourself to divert some of what you’ve been given today (freedom, safety, attention, money).