When I was seven years old, I fell in love with a series published by Bobbs-Merrill called 'The Childhood of Famous Americans.' In it, historical figures like Clara Barton, Nancy Hanks, Elias Howe, Patrick Henry, and dozens more came to life for me as children.

Ann Hood

Categorized in : Years Children Childhood

Time passes and I am still not through it. Grief isn't something you get over. You live with it. You go on on with it lodged in you. Sometimes I feel like I have swallowed a pile of stones. Grief makes me heavy. It makes me slow. Even on days when I laugh a lot, or dance, or finish a project, or meet a deadline, or celebrate, or make love, it is there. Lodged deep inside of me.

making-love grief laughing

I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than... by Ann Hood

I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words.

kissing strong meaningful

love is reliable. infatuation is temporary. by Ann Hood

love is reliable. infatuation is temporary.

infatuation temporary love-is

Grief doesn't have a plot. It isn't smooth. There is no beginning... by Ann Hood

Grief doesn't have a plot. It isn't smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end.

smooth plot grief

I was a daughterless mother. I had nowhere to put the things a mother places on her daughter. The nail polish I used to paint our toenails hardened. Our favorite videos gathered dust. Her small apron was in a box in the attic. Her shoes - the sparkly ones, the leopard rain boots, the ballet slippers - stood in a corner.

daughter mother rain

I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer-I just was one.

growing-up reading book

No one can write like Cheryl Strayed. by Ann Hood

No one can write like Cheryl Strayed.

writing

We were a family that made our Halloween costumes. Or, more accurately, my mother made them. She took no suggestions or advice. Halloween costumes were her territory. She was the brain behind my brothers winning girl costume, stuffing her own bra with newspapers for him to wear under a cashmere sweater and smearing red lipstick on his lips.

girl brother mother

A sibling is the lens through which you see your childhood. by Ann Hood

A sibling is the lens through which you see your childhood.

lenses childhood sibling

The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that? Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.

language grief love-you

I am the woman with the cool vintage glasses... I am the proud wife beside her husband... I am the writer who has written a new novel.

vintage glasses husband

My cousins and I used to play Beatle wives. We all wanted to be married to Paul, but John was O.K. too. None of us wanted Ringo. Or even worse, George.

cousin wife play

In Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline seamlessly knits together the past and present of two women, one young and one old. Kline reminds us that we never really lose anyone or anything or – perhaps most importantly – ourselves.

together two past

Time doesn't heal, I had learned, it just keeps moving. And it ta... by Ann Hood

Time doesn't heal, I had learned, it just keeps moving. And it takes us with it.

keep-moving heal moving

My daughter, Grace, was not killed by a gun. She died suddenly at age 5 from a virulent form of strep. As I stood stunned in a church at her memorial, one of the hardest things I heard someone say was, 'I'm going to go home and hug my child a little tighter.' 'Well, good for you,' I thought. 'I'm going to go home and scream.'

daughter mother children

No mother should lose her child. by Ann Hood

No mother should lose her child.

should mother children

Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in... by Ann Hood

Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God.

atheism beautiful believe

I learned to knit in 2002, six months after my 5-year-old daughter, Grace, died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. I was unable to read or write, and friends suggested I take up knitting; almost immediately I fell under its spell.

daughter mother writing

Don't waste your one beautiful life. by Ann Hood

Don't waste your one beautiful life.

beautiful-life waste beautiful

In my adult life, I had spent a lot of time angry at God, mostly over the sudden deaths in my family - my brother at 30, my daughter at 5.

daughter brother mother