Grandparents Archives - Soft In Hard Places

Cancer in a COVID World

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 08 May 2020 20:29:55 +0000

Lately, my emotions are scrubbed up raw. Tender, like new skin. My nerve endings fire all the time. I feel everything without a buffer, as if there are no more desensitizing layers laid down with busy, distracted, numbing activity. Continue reading →

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Depth of Field

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:05:09 +0000

It’s a gorgeous spring day on our 22 acres outside Fulton, a brocade of rolling green set against a periwinkle sky. It’s where I come to breathe. Today all four kids, their families, plus my dad and sister visiting from … Continue reading →

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Exquisite Grief

LisaPullenKent — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 22:06:54 +0000

I knew she'd stay close, that we would feel her; I didn't know she would come to me when I was exhausted and spent, in the dream-like trance of half-sleep, and spread comfort like warmth through my chest, or when I was quiet and contemplative, in a cool breeze, gently caressing my face and answering my question, "Is that you, Mom?" Continue reading →

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Eulogy To My Mother

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 01:23:16 +0000

When she shall die,Take her and cut her out in little stars,And she will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with nightAnd pay no worship to the garish sun. William Shakespeare Patricia … Continue reading →

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Through Grammy’s Eyes: A Birth Story

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 29 May 2014 22:13:42 +0000

Every birth has a story, ripe for the telling, though the tale varies with the perspective of the teller. The closest view belongs to the mother; it is her body, after all, that houses the new life, she who evicts … Continue reading →

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The Long Haul

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:34:18 +0000

I’m washing up in a restroom at the Oklahoma City airport and for a moment I can’t place my location: hospital? hotel? restaurant? Elegant water faucets and gleaming granite countertops add to my sense of disorientation. I don’t even recognize … Continue reading →

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Making Tear Soup

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:34:08 +0000

“Are you going to Colorado tomorrow, Mom?” Sydney stands in front of the refrigerator and asks the question for the third time this morning. “No, honey. Two weeks, remember? In two weeks.” I gently nudge her out of the way … Continue reading →

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The Only Way Out is Through

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:29:01 +0000

Grief lives in our house. Among the furniture, between the windows and the walls, it sits, thick and unmoving. Grief rides heavy on my chest. I can’t get a good, deep breath these days. It weighs down my husband’s shoulders and molds his features. Grief seeps into our nights of restless sleep and dreams of forgetting, of waking, and then remembering. Continue reading →

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The Essence of Her Presence

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:31:24 +0000

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies . . . Lord Byron (George Gordon) When I was 13 I sketched my mother’s profile in church. Regal, she sat with her chin tilted upward, receiving … Continue reading →

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Joyride

LisaPullenKent — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 01:07:58 +0000

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it; there ain’t nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill. But since we’re on our way down, We might … Continue reading →

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