Strength and Loss was submitted to fulfill the requirements of a graduate Memoir course in November of 2021.

Dear Reader,

When I submitted my proposal for my final project, I was really focused on writing something beautiful and uplifting about my Grandma. She was truly an amazing woman who had a huge impact on my life. She left a legacy of love and service. As my grandpa recently said, “She was a good woman. I could never find someone else who could ever measure up to her.” However, I ended up taking a little bit different direction.

In my Week 5 post, I talked about the source of my strength through some difficult times in my life—my faith—and Michael asked me if I would be incorporating some of that journey in my final project. At the time, my answer was no. I was focused on writing something about my Grandma to honor her. And then something happened that shifted the direction of my thoughts. My son’s best friend was killed in a motorcycle accident. He would have been 17 on the 26^th. I found myself focused on just one thing—how can I help my sons get through this devastating loss? And suddenly, everything sort of came together. That idea of strength through loss keeps coming up for me in this class, like it’s been on my mind and in my heart, and I just needed an outlet for those thoughts. Thinking about what I want to share with my boys about loss and grief seemed to be a good way to tie everything together.

What I ended up doing is using the blog on the source of my strength from Module 5 as a frame for the project, interspersing stories of significant loss (both mine and my kids’) with some of the things I hope my children learn from my journey.

However, it’s also a really raw topic, and it’s hard to write about. So I feel like my final project is not be as polished as I’d hoped. Thankfully, instead of worrying about that, I’m grateful for the opportunity to tie everything together that I’ve been working on in this class and work through the unfathomable loss of a sweet young man.