The Sabbatical Chronicles #1: The Journey on the Other Side of Grief
“And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.”
-Maya Angelou, When Great Trees Fall
Grief changes you. I’ll be honest, people would often say that to me and as someone who has navigated her own set grief over the course of her life, I can recognize the tinged edges of my world colored by the losses I’ve faced. What I didn’t expect was the ways in which the whole swath of fabric gets dyed and restitched when you lose the one who birthed you, especially, the day before the anniversary of said birth.
For over a year, I’ve hesitated about writing about the impact of my mother’s death. Every attempt to put words to page would result in my fingers freezing above the keyboard and the blank screen felt like an insurmountable barrier. I’m uncertain if it’s because I feared picking at the wound would open the floodgates or it just never felt like the right time. Regardless, I pushed it off and with that, life lumbered on. I found myself becoming a new homeowner, a milestone that I never thought I would have the pleasure of seeing. I faced my first (and second) car accident, lost my cat daughter (Raizo), gained a new cat son (Greyson), among other significant life transitions.
So, here I am, approximately 513 days later, and I finally have something to say.
My mother and I had a complicated relationship. We were quite different. Her, an extrovert who loved sequins and color, while my wardrobe often looks like my typical outing is to a funeral or dingy poetry cafe in a Parisian basement. Needless to say, there was often conflict. The ways in which we were raised and the cards life dealt us led to two vastly different people outwardly. And yet, helping community was a core value that we shared. I love her dearly and miss her daily. Her passing upended my life in ways that I’m still trying to sift through, but what I do know for certain is that she gave me the greatest gift of all: the gift of choice.
After 10 years in the philanthropic field and nearly 20 years in service to Northeast Ohio, I made the active decision to take a step back. I often joke that working in philanthropy radicalized me in some ways. This field gives you the opportunity to see the threads that bind us as a community, but also the ways in which it leaves people behind. Daily, I do a delicate dance on the tightrope between hope and disillusionment.
Over the course of my tenure, I’ve had a direct hand in helping distribute over $20 million to vital community development and arts and culture organizations across our region. I sat with community partners hearing their challenges, helped them find solutions, and supported their growth. I co-built a program that continues to provide arts and cultural experiences to 10,000 young people every year. I was a team member on some of the most transformative public space projects in Akron’s history. I traveled around the world learning from other communities, sat on panels, conducted countless presentations, supported arts grantmaking across the state, and a whole host of other things that I’m deeply proud of.
At the ripe, young age of 26, I entered this field having no clue what I was doing. I made some mistakes. But luckily, I had the benefit of having some of the most understanding mentors who helped shape me into the grantmaker that I am today. And most recently, I’ve had the opportunity to pass on my knowledge and mentor someone who is nearly the same age I was when I started in this field. This work is as challenging as it is rewarding. And at some point in the last year, I hit a wall. Grief and burnout will not wait long for you to heed their warnings.
So here I am, a decade later making the choice to reshape my life stitch by stitch to best serve who I am today. I’m re-prioritizing rest, joy, travel, and romanticizing the small moments. For the first time since I started working at 16, I will not be employed by someone else. There’s an inherent privilege in the ability to take this sort of leap into the unknown. And, I’d be fooling myself and you if I said there wasn’t a touch of fear in the uncertainty, but there’s also excitement. There’s beauty in this kind of messy alteration.
I will be able to return to my artistic practices and finally finish the novel that has been waiting in the wings for my attention. This space will also benefit from the renewed energy, but most importantly, I will spend this time coming back home to myself.
As autumn leaves begin to fade and winter takes hold, I hope to be able to look back and be proud of the leap that I’ve taken to show up fully as myself again. And I hope that on the other side of this journey is a bit more clarity, a bit more softness, and hopefully a bit more magic.
-Bron
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