Rebekah Joy

The story of grief and new life.

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Things aren’t ok right now. I’m not ok.

I went sledding with my daughter today. We shared a sled, so one of us would sit at the bottom of the hill while the other climbed up the hill and slid down. We went back and forth doing this until we were both so red in the face and cold that we had to hike back home. It was the most fun I have had in a long time. After my 48-year-old menopausal body climbed up the hill through 16+ inches of…

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An Immigrant Story on St. Patrick’s Day.

The history of Corned Beef and Cabbage is the story of immigrants. In the 1800’s, at the height of the potato famine, Irish immigrants set sail for the United States in search of a better life and in hopes of being free from British Rule. They started first in cities in the East from Philadelphia to Boston, settling in poor immigrant neighborhoods commonly sharing space with their Jewish…

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my heart.

Two years ago today, I sat in a small windowless room at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as a pediatric cardiologist, a stranger, sat down and began drawing a picture of a heart. It was my daughter’s heart. It was imperfect. It was broken. I listened as she explained that at some point at the beginning of my pregnancy, my daughter’s heart never finished forming the way it was supposed to.…

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ready.

The following was something I wrote on October 5, 2015 when my daughter was only two years old. Today, while I was at close friend’s bridal shower, her mother took a piece of paper out of her pocket and this is what it was. I wrote it six years ago and forgot about it, but I needed to hear it today, so I’m sharing it here. I don’t want to forget this again. Bella loves the ocean. I mean she…

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Kintsugi

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and filling the cracks with gold, silver, or platinum. This repair shows that the brokenness is part of the history of the piece instead of some reason to throw it away or hide it. It celebrates each crack by filling it with precious metal. The piece often looks more beautiful as a result of this process. Shortly after her seventh…

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the surgery.

“I wish God would let me be born again so I could be born with a whole heart and be a normal kid. I wouldn’t have to get this surgery and I could just play tomorrow.”

  This is what my 7-year old daughter said to me the night before her open-heart surgery. It was, as my dad would’ve put it, a preachable moment. As instructed, we had just washed all of my bedding in hot water and dried it extra…

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A decade.

Last night I scrolled through my Instagram feed reading so many stories of the great decade people had for their 2010’s. I loved looking at the pictures of great successes, life milestones, vacations, etc. I tried to think of what I would reflect on and all I could think about as a theme for the last ten years of my life was loss. Since 2009, I lost my dad, my uncle, both of my grandmothers, five…

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things fall apart.

This morning I woke up and the sun was coming in my windows. I smiled and was so excited to start my day. Not only was it Friday, but I also had time to go for a good long run along the river after I dropped Bella off at school. I went downstairs, made coffee, and sat for a few minutes to meditate. I closed my eyes and thought about how good things are in life right now. I am going through a lot…

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shame and belonging

Lately I have been feeling so unsettled. I walk around my house and it doesn’t feel like home. It doesn’t feel like it fits. It feels like I am in someone else’s house. I used to come home and feel so good here, but I lost that feeling a couple of months ago and I haven’t been able to get it back. Every room feels off somehow. I look at my body and I feel like it is not mine. I feel like I am in…

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dating advice

I don’t have a lot of experience with dating. At 41 I have been in 4 relationships: Two were short, one was long, and one was a summer fling that resulted in a child and months of failed co-parenting before it was over. All four were men who I knew as friends for months or years before simply changing our status from friend to relationship virtually overnight. I moved to my high school town in…

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dear dad.

I wrote this letter today, on the eve of the 7th anniversary of my dad’s death. I’m sharing it because it made me feel better and maybe it will help other people who have lost someone close.

Dear Dad,

It’s been seven years since we said goodbye to you. Seven years since we sat around your bed and told you it was ok to go and that we would be ok. I remember that day in the car after your doctor’s…

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Mangia.

Tonight I was struggling. So much is going on in my life so fast and I was trying to process everything in a somewhat coherent way. I scrolled through my phone and called a few people, but I only got voicemails. We moved to this city four years ago and have built up an incredible village of people who support us through good and bad, but tonight I needed someone different. The stuff I am dealing…

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snow day.

My morning began with my daughter dancing on top of me at 7am to Jazmine Sullivan while wearing a princess dress. I looked out the window and honestly couldn’t understand why the school district decided to cancel today. There were some flurries, but the roads were just wet. One of the downsides to working from home is that a “snow day” just means you have to spend the day trying to get your work…

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Slaughter Beach

This morning was a normal lazy Sunday. My daughter and I woke up, went downstairs, and made breakfast. As we ate it, we stared at the disaster that is our house. Toys on every square foot of the floor, a pile of dirty clothes and about four piles of clean ones that were folded but not put away. The dust in the house spread across the light coming in the window and my daughter pointed at it and…

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The Pastor's Kid

The Pastor’s Kid

When I was growing up, I thought the worst thing a person could be was a pastor’s kid. For me, being a pastor’s kid meant going to church every Sunday and being there most of the day. It meant going there on other days too. Lots of other days. It meant moving to different towns and schools and always having just enough, but having to go without some things like annual trips to Disney or having…

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grief is a jerk.

grief is a jerk.

Today I was driving down a tree lined suburban street. The weather was perfect, the sun was out, and it was still morning. I pulled up to a stop sign and an older gentleman waved to me to indicate he was about to cross in front of me. I smiled and waved him on. I watched him as he slowly walked in front of my car. He was tall, handsome, and probably in his early 70’s. He was wearing white socks…

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timehopping.

After pulling an all-nighter to eradicate the fleas from my house(the downside to having a neighbor with a huge heart who likes to feed all the neighborhood strays),  I sleepily walked downstairs to load up on coffee. I walked into the kitchen, looked down in the sink where my coffee cup was soaking in water, only to find our hermit crab, Bernie, looking right back at me. There he was, just…

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