Fear of Tears
Grief took root in me the day my middle child died — still so young, still so unfinished. People said, “She’s in a better place.” I wanted to ask, How do you know?
I had four other children who were breaking in their own ways. I thought my job was to hold them together, not fall apart myself. So I tucked my pain into hidden corners.
Years passed in silence. My body carried what my voice would not. I didn’t have language for grief. I didn’t dare name trauma. But something in me knew it needed expression. Maybe if I could somehow paint my sorrow, I could begin to understand it.
On the canvas, I found myself small and hidden in the center — surrounded by fire and storm. A grief that flared without warning. Tears that fell when I could not stop them.
And slowly, I saw what I had not allowed myself to see: grief does not want to be hidden. It asks to be witnessed. It asks to be felt.
I feared my tears. But they were never my enemy.
They were my release.
Boundary
This painting was born from a deep personal struggle. My daughter is an addict, and I was working through a boundary I had set with her—one that filled me with guilt and doubt, but I knew I needed to hold. I began the painting with lines, circles, and spirals, letting out the chaos and even some of the anger I was carrying. Then I added a vortex of many colors, holding all the confusion and not knowing.
When I sat with it, I realized it wasn’t finished. I painted over the vortex with dark, circular layers, and from that darkness a lotus flower emerged. Like the lotus growing from the mud, this painting showed me that the boundary I set was necessary. It would be hard, but in staying with it, I knew I would bloom too.