This is a heartbreaker. You beautifully captured the pain and confusion of a child wrestling with the weight of their new world. Strangely, or coincidentally, my parents divorced when I was nine and it is indeed a challenge to navigate life during such a tumultuous time. This isn't my story, but it could have been.
This is so real and heart-wrenching. This line -- “I will have to answer something to that collective expression of support. Each and every time I will have to react.” -- captures so well the burden that many well-meaning people place on someone who has suffered great loss and/or is grieving. Somehow, they make it about them and their “condolences” come with expectations attached.
This is a heartbreaker. You beautifully captured the pain and confusion of a child wrestling with the weight of their new world. Strangely, or coincidentally, my parents divorced when I was nine and it is indeed a challenge to navigate life during such a tumultuous time. This isn't my story, but it could have been.
So relate to this one even if it was not my prompt either. I like the sacred balance you struck Victoria, with the said and the unsaid.
Thank you for reading!
Disorienting, aching, but full of perseverance too. <3
This is so real and heart-wrenching. This line -- “I will have to answer something to that collective expression of support. Each and every time I will have to react.” -- captures so well the burden that many well-meaning people place on someone who has suffered great loss and/or is grieving. Somehow, they make it about them and their “condolences” come with expectations attached.
Thank you for reading 🥹
Well put/observed. I remember exactly that from teachers.