Sometimes you read something that breaks your heart.
Yesterday Vanity Fair magazine published an essay by Jesmyn Ward, a writer and two-time National Book Award winner (for her novels Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing), about her husband’s death earlier this year from Covid-19.
Jesmyn’s husband was just 33 years old when he died, the father of their two young children who was about to return to school after spending time at home: “his primary job in our household was to shore us up, to take care of the children, to be a househusband.”
The essay speaks to her sense of grief and loss juxtaposed with the death of George Floyd and protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Lyrical, brave and poetic, it’s about the tragedy of individual loss and the greater tragedy of history, about centuries of despair and perhaps now some acknowledgment that things have never been right for many people in this country.
We’ve written a lot here lately about women in history. Jesmyn Ward’s essay captures the moment we’re living in now.
Read “On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic” here.
Note: The word ‘respair,’ which dates back to the 15th century, refers to the return of hope after a period of despair.
Featured image on top ©Sara Berry