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This was a photo I captured a month ago on the Oregon Coast. As I was hiking I came upon this deer about 150 ft in front of me on the trail. We locked eyes for a good 5 minutes, both patiently waiting for one another to make a move. It was an awe-inspiring experience to be so close to an animal that was at least four times my size, and with such calmness too. My mom mentioned several times in her interview how nature is perhaps one of the only places that she feels spiritual ever since she left Christianity in her youth. Experiences like this, where nature and humanity can coexist and be a part of the same grand image, are very healing to the soul. Especially in times of grief, to be so close to so much teeming life makes one's own journey seem less impossible to overcome. I think I too have taken on a love of nature as a spiritual ground just like my mother did all those years ago. This love of nature is something that connects us both, and is an outlet for both of our own grief journeys.

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Here are perhaps my mom's two closest friends: My dog Walter and my step-father Garret. Unlike in the time of my grandmother's death, my mom is surrounded by so much love and support from people like these two. When her mom passed, my mother felt so alone and without any support, and it made the process such much more degrading than healing as it should be. My mom has passed down this unconditional love and support to us, even despite her being deprived of it during her own times of grief. She changed the narrative, and said, "No! I am not going to keep everything the same as it was before." She realized that she was transformed by her grief, and she is more loving and compassionate than she was before. I take these lessons with me on my own journeys of grief which I have experienced thus far. I have learned so many valuable lessons on how to live in the moment while also acknowledging the inevitability of suffering and grief. My mom was determined to fix the mistakes of her forbearers, and I believe she succeeded.