Loss Archives - Soft In Hard Places

Evanescent

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:46:05 +0000

When I was growing up we moved a lot, big moves crisscrossing the country. Perpetually the new kid, I never stayed long enough to feel like I fit in. Then, I married a man whose childhood was the opposite of … Continue reading →

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Not So Long Ago and Not So Far Away

LisaPullenKent — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:11:08 +0000

Contemplative by nature, the isolation of this COVID year has forced constant and not always welcome introspection. Magnetically drawn to the tales of Storybooke, the fictional town inhabited by intersecting Continue reading →

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Antidote to Disillusionment*

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:39:23 +0000

*Reading given at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, online, August 9, 2020 “Always have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” Maya Angelou In what do I place my trust? This profound, existential … Continue reading →

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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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Resurgent Hope

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 21:28:16 +0000

I read once that Canadian geese are monogamous, that most couples stay together all their lives. Considering the brutality of life in this wild world, I find that to be an inspiring example of devotion, applicable to the human condition, particularly in our postmodern reality. Continue reading →

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The Way Home

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 04:38:53 +0000

I went to church this morning—on my couch. A dutiful daughter, I spent the first half of my life in religious prostration, and then I left. But detachment from dogma meant disconnect from community and I wandered, people-less into my … Continue reading →

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Just Breathe

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:47:33 +0000

Re-posted from March 6, 2014 “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.I am, I am, I am.” Sylvia Plath There’s a stillness that descends on the hospital late at night, softening the harshness … Continue reading →

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Love in the Stitches

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 01:22:02 +0000

The older I get, the more I’m drawn homeward. When the weather turns cold, my craving for soup on the stove, a fire in the hearth, and time to knit begs to be slaked. Chilly temps find me cruising arts … Continue reading →

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And So This Is Christmas … Let The Grief In

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:45:18 +0000

It’s late December, only days to Christmas. The kids are out of school and it’s dark already at 4:30 pm. All the lights burn in the kitchen where my husband is busy making sugar cookies with our girls. Flour dusts … 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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