Morning Bulletin #1

Perseverance

Sometimes life kicks hard

Dawn Nelson
2 min readAug 25, 2024

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Plant companions in the earth garden. Photo by author.

When grief strikes in its unwavering perfect accuracy of aim, I find it is the small things that make life bearable.

Things such as doing the laundry, washing the dishes, taking out the trash. Feeding the ever bossy cat. Watering the plants. It is the small acts of caring and taking care that ease the burden.

This morning I am washing clothes for my son. He is in the hospital with a severe injury. It is a life altering event, not just for him, but for all of us. While there are many things to be grateful for and hopeful about, it is not without a great amount of loss. But rather than let grief paralyze us, focusing on small acts of caring really makes all the difference.

I feel like I have spent a lifetime preparing for the ability to weather this kind of storm. There have been other times in my life where I was grief stricken, but now there is no time for such things. Time is critical.

In front of me are a mountain of tasks, piling higher every day. I try to detach emotions from the tasks so that it is easier to get them done. It works, for the most part. The guiding principle is still quality of life.

Through all of this, I keep thinking about how achievement culture robs us of enjoying our…

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Dawn Nelson
Dawn Nelson

Written by Dawn Nelson

Writing creative nonfiction & personal essay

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