At the kitchen table: readers, pull up a chair...

At the kitchen table: readers, pull up a chair...

Over the next few weeks leading up to Glow’s 8th anniversary, we will be hosting a series of conversations here at the kitchen table. Each week we will reflect on a different aspect of this community: How did we get here? What else is out there that gives us support? What is it about Glow that fills a particular need in our lives? What is it like to write for Glow? What do we hope for Glow's future, and what do readers hope for?

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Expectations

Expectations

Jo-Anne, our forum moderator, is writing for us today. Her daughter Zia was stillborn on July 16, 2013. She says, "The years have passed and they will continue to do so. The sadness and initial rawness of grief has slowly subsided but there is still sadness there. It comes and it goes. Sometimes its a gentle breeze at other times a tornado ripping my insides. Explaining that isn't difficult, making people understand is. Opinions do not matter so much but how do we change the way society supports newly grieving parents if we cease the fight for significance of life. There truly is no footprint too small."

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Lost, and never found

Lost, and never found

On that day in July, overcome as I was with the fear of being lost with her, I still had no idea of how lost, how irretrievably lost I would be, in a few hours, and then forever, without her. As I take a breath, a few steps, a turn, and then another in this town and in this life, I am forever paused at the stop sign where my little explorer Raahi last stood with me, and showed me the way.

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Outside/inside

Outside/inside

My eyes are still brown, deep-set like my grandmother’s, and I still have her upper lip, and chin. I never grew more than the five feet I reached in high school. I still prefer to dress in solid colors. Long pants almost year-round, since I still don’t like to shave my legs. I wear sensible shoes, brown or black. I’ve worn the same coat through more than a dozen winters now. So I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking, from afar, that I am the same girl.

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