c is for courage

Anne Frank: 

'I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn' 

courage

I wrote myself through childhood, in journals and diaries. Through moving and divorce and latch key kid loneliness and fear. I wrote myself through a miscarriage, a friend's suicide and postpartum depression.



The writing was for my eyes only, until I took a class at Book Passage, then joined a writing group for mothers. It was partly therapy to write and then therapy to share. Through that repeated practice came the courage to tell my stories and make sense of my grief and confusion that life sometimes serves up.



I wrote through shame and fear and helplessness after my son was arrested during his first year in college. More than anything else, writing and sharing my stories have helped me become a better mother to him, and gave me the courage to let him go.

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop. It is filled with essays about every possible aspect of parenting and life. Mamas Write, and it takes courage.

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