Monochromatic Heart: on grief and love and still being here

Jessica Latshaw puts skin on grief. Introducing grief as a thing that happens to all of us who are both lucky enough to be here and love someone, Jessica chronicles the problem grief presents to her when her son Luca is stillborn.

Frustrated that nobody can tell her when she'll be better, frustrated by the memes sent her way ("When you can't find the sunshine, be the sunshine" feels particularly tone deaf. Surely a grieving mother gets a pass to be someone's sunshine? At least for a week?)-Jessica writes poignantly about the struggle to reconcile being herself when her son has died. She wonders how important it is to be happy, exploring a shadow-side of life that is no longer happy, but maybe meaningful, still.

While grief feels like a problem she has to solve, Jessica discovers that grief is what walks her through a sacred passage. A good-bye (and also a hello). A my-son-is-here-but-not-how-I-wanted. She is shocked that life still holds invitation, that humor still grabs her attention, that, though her son has died, her love for him and relationship to him has not. She wrestles with faith, hope, other people having a thousand healthy babies (give or take), and finds this kind of wrestling can lead to a better place than the grief that, upon first meeting, seemingly came with a life-sentence.