Surviving Savannah

by Patti Callahan Henry

I know this: we’re made of stories, legends and myths just as we are made of water, atoms and flesh. Once you know it, you can’t un-know it; you can’t pretend that everything that happened before you were born doesn’t have something to do with who you are today. Still, everything can change in an instant, a flash, a blink of an eye.

the heart has reason that reason knows nothing of,

“If one wants to move beyond the past, one must not delve into the past,”

But no one, even if they believe they have, moves past the past. It follows; it shadows; it breathes quietly in the dark corners.

“not everyone who survives trauma becomes a better person. The idea that surviving brings everyone to a new and better place is a lie told by people who need the world to make sense.”

Family had always possessed a gravitational force field, part love, part obligation, mixed with the usual petty irritations and the bonds of an intimately shared history.

we are the ones who make meaning out of the tragedies.” “I don’t know how. Tragedy—it can come from anywhere at any time. How do we go through life knowing that? How did we ever not know it? And yet we pretend we’re safe. It’s absurd.”

“You and I both know there’s a difference between prejudice and obliviousness but sometimes it can have the same result.”

would hope they would not ignore the devastation of slavery, or cast it aside, not pretend it never existed or didn’t have its echoes.

The life we live is the life we choose with every decision of the heart, soul and mind.