Surviving Savannah

by Patti Callahan Henry

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.

“And then everything changed.”

“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.”

We are our truest selves when life and death walk hand in hand. When crisis comes, and tragedy explodes, our true character comes to the fore.

Something in us wants to live, if we can tap into that part of our soul.”

critical assessment of the South: “Your devotion to conformity is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Despite being the most politically free people in the world, you are the least socially free I’ve ever encountered.”

There is tragedy behind, and it trails us and walks alongside us, but still there is the great mystery of life after.’”

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

She is the metaphor for all of us. Nothing all virtuous. Nothing all wicked. This mixture that is life, that is human, that is brokenness and wholeness.”

How do we survive the surviving? What happens to us after we live through tragedy both great and small? Is there such a thing as fate? Who do we become and why? Can we ignore our past if we are ashamed of it?