From D.W.: Thanksgiving is over now. Christmas season, for those that observe it in a particular way, has begun. Admittedly, as someone raised in a non-liturgical faith tradition, I've never really understood what Advent was all about. For Rachel, though, this slow transition between the two holidays
From D.W.: Well, tomorrow's the day. It would have been our thirteenth Wedding Anniversary. And it is the second one without Rachel. This is the memorial that's hardest, I think. Harder than her birthday, or mine. Or Christmas. Or even the anniversary of her death.
From D.W.: Our Anniversary is now just over a week away. I don't have much to say about it that wouldn't sound canned or confused. There's this notion that gets discussed often in the "widow community" (yes, there's a
From D.W.: Our Anniversary is coming up soon. In just a couple of weeks. I don't know how that's going to affect me this time around, and I've learned that it's foolish to try and predict grief. But what I do
From D.W.: Tomorrow is election day. It was both one of Rachel's favorite days of the year and, particularly in the last decade, one of the most anxiety ridden and frustrating. It's become redundant and almost tiresome to keep saying that "this is one
From D.W.: In Houston it can take a while before you actually start to feel the Summer fade into Autumn, but it's happening. It's never the full-fever flame out that you get in more northern climes, but it happens. And boy, is it ever full
From D.W.: I know that, in the larger landscape of issues that involve actual, real human suffering, that the White House is just a building. And it's a building with no shortage of historical trauma in its DNA, having been built by forced labor on stolen land.
From D.W.: Maybe it's because Autumn is creeping in. Maybe because I just had lunch with a very old friend I hadn't seen in 15 years. Or maybe it's just because I'm kind of hungry today, but I thought I'
From D.W.: A "Hate America Rally?" Really? Is that the best you can do? I can't say for sure whether or not Rachel would have been at the No Kings rally in Houston this weekend. But I can say that she would have full-throated-ly supported
The writing of Rachel Graves Jones
From D.W.: Real talk... I had no idea what to post about today. Our neighbors are hurting, and democracy feels so fragile, and everything just makes me angry, and I hate it. My brother in law suggested that I post about compassion, and he has a point. It'
From D.W.: It's not winter, yet. Certainly not in Houston. But it's coming. And after that comes Spring. Eventually Spring. I like these two pieces from Rachel building on a motif she leaned upon often, written nearly a decade apart. We have to remind ourselves
From D.W.: One of the things I admired most about Rachel's writing, and loved about her person, was how she could always ground me in context. She never let me travel too far down desperate roads without reminding me that there was a spare tire in the
From D.W.: This post was written right after the Virginia Tech shooting nearly two decades ago when Rachel was still working in parish youth ministry, but really it could be about any mass shooting event that's occurred in this country since then. I warned you there was
From D.W.: We're still a few weeks away from the anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, but I stumbled upon this post today that she wrote on the actual 2oth anniversary of that event. Now, 16 years later, it still works. Long Valley Lane. November
From D.W.: I've never had much use for birthdays. At least since I crossed the little kid threshold. Rachel, though, LOVED birthdays. She loved her own birthday and she loved celebrating everyone else's. She didn't care that I didn't care about
From D.W.: She and I used to talk about the two of us together being the strange, but beautiful alchemic photo birthed by the amalgam of two completely different puzzles. Individually broken apart so that they recombined into something uniquely stunning. Uniquely us. I've been thinking about
From D.W.: I'm a generally private person. Not anti-social, necessarily, but certainly introverted. I have a small circle of close friends, but I often joke that I'm actively trying to shed them. Rachel, as anyone can attest, was completely the opposite. Her circle was enormous
From D.W.: I was talking to a colleague yesterday about my struggle with wanting to make this site represent the totality of Rachel's writing while also feeling contemporary and reacting to the moments we're in. She wrote so much that was joyous, funny, uplifting, silly.
From D.W.: It's no accident that I'm posting this today, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks, as that is the scaffolding upon which she frames this piece. And it does serve as an apt memorial of the day, written ten years later. But
From D.W.: I've been thinking about how we treat immigrants and refugees a lot recently. For... you know... reasons. Rachel thought about that a lot, too. And she'd been thinking about it for a long time. This post takes us back seven years. And then
From D.W.: It just felt like a good time to remind everyone that joy exists. Love is real. Peace is possible. We just have to be brave enough to go and get it. Facebook. February 8th. 2022 Because some days, your only recourse is to dress your giant dog
