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.

Grief was as hot as lava, cold as ice, thick as mortar and thin as vellum; it was everything and nothing. It choked me and brought my life to its knees