I shouldn’t have checked the news on my phone before bed. The headlines grimly told of the country’s lack of oxygen and the mass cremations that mirror a horror movie. A grown man sobbed like a child to the reporter, desperate to find a hospital bed for his sick mother. The night turned a couple shades darker and I thought I could hear my children crying. Coughing, perhaps. My mind was off the man and onto my five treasures tucked in their beds.  I closed my eyelids and worried alone.  The weekends are quiet with COVID restrictions. Everything is closed and the streets are silent, causing my mind to recall…

I am changing and it’s as unnerving as the multiplying lines around my eyes. During our first year living in the Himalayas, a sour loneliness resided in my stomach at all times and often moved up my neck, into my throat, and burst through my being in the form of hot tears and angry words. For legitimate reasons, I was grieving. Like a child, I screamed, “It’s not fair!” and “It hurts!” over and over, in hopes that my Father would send an emergency jet in to rescue me.   But my Father seemed far off. He was somewhere else. Likely, killing the fattened calf for my brother and fulfilling…