when you lose your mother
I can't tell you exactly why I photographed each of my parents, dead in their beds.
Some of these stories show how divorce ruptured not only our family but my identity. sense of family and divorce from my first husband had on my identity and our sense of family. Others explore what happens when I remarry, and confront colliding expectations about blending a family. All of them address the hard emotional work it takes to make and keep a family in a time when so many forces conspire to pull it apart.
Some of these stories show how divorce ruptured not only our family but my identity. sense of family and divorce from my first husband had on my identity and our sense of family. Others explore what happens when I remarry, and confront colliding expectations about blending a family. All of them address the hard emotional work it takes to make and keep a family in a time when so many forces conspire to pull it apart.
Some of these stories show how divorce ruptured not only our family but my identity. sense of family and divorce from my first husband had on my identity and our sense of family. Others explore what happens when I remarry, and confront colliding expectations about blending a family. All of them address the hard emotional work it takes to make and keep a family in a time when so many forces conspire to pull it apart.
Some of these stories show how divorce ruptured not only our family but my identity. sense of family and divorce from my first husband had on my identity and our sense of family. Others explore what happens when I remarry, and confront colliding expectations about blending a family. All of them address the hard emotional work it takes to make and keep a family in a time when so many forces conspire to pull it apart.
Sarah Balsley
stories from life
Our practice years are over.
By now we should have learned how to live.
Growing up, I secretly longed
to be the mother of a big family in a big old house,
and while I was lucky to get a good education
and have a fulfilling career,
to me this was always the prize.
One divorce, one remarriage,
and five nearly-grown children later,
what I have learned is this -
making a family is an astonishing gift,
full of moments so beautiful you dare not take a breath.
But it is also exhausting, heartbreaking,
identity-crushing work, for decades on end.
These stories are my efforts to search
for beauty and meaning
in the ordinary struggles of daily life.
I hope they strike at something universal,
a longing we share.
I see you.
I know how hard you are trying.
Praise for Sarah's stories from
Oprah's Book Club
author Jacqueline Mitchard:
"Their simplicity is like black ice."
As featured in
NPR
BRAIN
CHILD
GREENWICH COUNTRY CAPITALIST