I am on a rough patch of the road on my journey without Mack. Since mid-December, the absence of her laughter is a loud and painful silence in my ears. My yearning for her wise commentary on our upside-down world is beating out of my chest. I am furious with the universe for stealing her away so soon. Too soon. Holiday blues, which fester into the January cold and gloom, sit heavy upon bones, intensifying the pain of all grief. I accept this truth, because I have seen it with my own brown eyes for four holiday seasons past. But this rough patch is different than the others. It is angrier and sharper, and it is palpable and relentless.

This time the road is not so much a sharp and treacherous s-curve through the loneliness of my loss, but rather it is a stretch of road bumpy with injustice. This rough patch is not only personal, but also political. It is a consequence of my grief for Mack, aggravated by my grief for the evil in the world. It is fueled by my anger at men who abuse their power over women, who use their authority to inflict harm upon women, and who disrespect the humanity of women. You see, Mack’s dream was to write TV shows with purpose. She was planning to create strong female characters, craft stories and dialogue that empowered women, depict the intelligence, dignity, and hearts of women, and demonstrate the beauty and strength of equality, diversity, and justice for all of us. Mack wanted to use her voice to celebrate women. And it really pisses me off that the universe gave despicable men like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Roy Moore, and Larry Nassar so much time to degrade and to terrorize women and denied my sweet baby her chance to raise her voice in behalf of women.

Most of the tears of a mother’s grief fall for a bright future denied a promising child. Every single day I breathe, I miss Mack’s presence in my life, but I also mourn all of the years she is missing, all of the experiences she will never have, and all of the beauty she would have spread out into the world if she would have had more time. It is bitterly unfair that such a heart as hers is gone. Mack missing from the world enrages me. As anyone who has ever endured the loss of a child knows, much of the struggle is keeping yourself from becoming adrift in a sea of anger. Sometimes, however, our strength fails us and we wade out too far into the dangerous water.

This particular patch of angry grief sits at the intersection of personal and political grief. Or, in other words, it sits in juxtaposition with my anger over the ongoing stories of sexual assault and harassment these past weeks and, specifically, the horrendous story of abuse of girls at USA Gymnastics. The abuse, injustice, and inequality that women continue to experience in our supposed enlightened society has incensed the liberal feminist human in me as I know it would have incensed the liberal feminist human in my Macko. But late this week, my grief and anger overwhelmed me, as I read about the evil that Dr. Nassar perpetrated against the female gymnasts whose bodies and wellbeing were entrusted to his care. I wept as I listened to the courageous testimony of the survivors, whom so many grownups had failed to protect. In my grief for them, my grief for Mack bubbled over and beyond the bounds of my strength to endure it.

It is hard for me to explain this complicated emotion and to characterize the ways in which grief intensifies the force of all other feelings. But I think it is just simply this: that a broken heart forever breaks more easily. Since I have chosen to feel the pain of my grief, instead of to bury and deny it, I must feel the full force of every other emotion that comes over me. I accept the reality that the full force can be cruel and that my response to it is not always courageous. My knees buckled under the strain of it all on Friday evening, relentless tears and anxiety bearing down upon me. Therefore, I spent the weekend cleaning up the debris of this particularly violent collision between my grief for Mack and my grief for humanity. It was not a pleasant two days, I assure you. Yet the weekend culminated, finally and thank goodness, with a particularly therapeutic session of what writing coach Natalie Goldberg calls “writing down the bones.”

I am still angry and sad and probably vulnerable, too. But, oh my, I do feel a lot better. For me, writing releases the negative energy that threatens my wherewithal and zaps all of the resources of my survival. Thank goodness I can let it go out of me along with the emotions pouring out of my heart, through my fingertips, and onto the page. The sharing is good, too; so thank you for listening. And don’t you worry about me, because Mack is here. She never liked it when her Momma Bear was angry, so she’s with me now, helping me breathe. She also promises that tonight will bring a good sleep, and that tomorrow morning will bring…

Peace.

Or else…