I love Morgan Farley’s piece in Transforming Terror. I found her poignant description of 9/11 victims especially moving, “It is possible to stay humanly connected, and inwardly free, in the face of terror beyond imagining, terror far more grievous than my own” (p. 188). It seems that this compassion within terror that these people displayed for one another, prompted her to foster this type of compassion for herself. Her personal journey reminded me of something Jentz described—that going into the dark can save you (p. 185). Farley wrote so eloquently about this process. I too have spent some time coddling my inner child. One of Farley’s most beautiful descriptions said, “She would knit me into the felt truth of that time and thereby knit me back into my own skin” (p. 190). I love the idea that our adult selves can journey back to comfort our child selves in an experience where the actual adults in our lives betrayed us. The notion that we can have the power to be the adult for ourselves, even after the fact, is truly empowering.

I also identified with Farley’s realization, “I held my head in my hands and wept. That was the balm for her wounds, the rescue she had been waiting for—someone willing to feel and suffer with her at this depth, to weep for her and hold her close” (p. 190). For me this also speaks to the idea that in the end we must be able to rely upon ourselves. There is something to be said for filling our lives with people that we can lean on for support, but ultimately there is so much power in knowing how to be there for yourself. In the end we’re all human, and this means that the people we love have the capacity to betray us and disappoint us in any variety of ways—even when it’s not their intention. I feel like knowing how to take care of ourselves when we’re hurt—and being confident in our ability to do so—lends a certain kind of freedom to our intimate relationships. It takes the pressure off of the other person to be that ultimate source of stability. We have the power to be that for ourselves.

Farley’s realization on page 191 also resonated with me; “I thought I was saving her, but it is she who is saving me…I am no longer divided against myself.” When we can approach our lives with all parts of ourselves participating, I feel we are truly unstoppable. “I rock in the small boat of my deliverance. The ocean I rest on is deep and still. Its touch is tenderness itself” (p.192). When we get to this place fear loses its grip on us. We are free.

“Aunt Muriel, when will this funeral be over, when will the coffin be buried, when will the grass grow over the graves and the children dance? When will the wounds close and scabs drop off the healing skin?” (exp: Kogawa, quoted in Lefebvre, p.159). I think Kogawa’s answer to this question, is that the trauma is never completely resolved; we never completely recover. Even when the funeral is over and everything is laid to rest, there is a residuality to grief and trauma. The scabs fall off, but evidence of the wound remains. The new pink skin, growth out of injury, glows brightly. I don’t think that healing is impossible, but some of the scars we carry forever. These battle wounds are not necessarily negative however; it’s possible to wear one’s scars proudly- evidence of life experience, resiliency, and growth. A “red badge of courage,” our scars can give us strength.

“To every story there is an after-story, and to every life an afterwards. Beyond each punctuation point, each period, are further questionings and more bends in the road ahead that we can imagine” (exp: Kogawa, quoted in Lefebvre, p.156). I love this quote by Kagawa. I think it suggests an underlying hopefulness in our life experiences. It seems that Kogawa is arguing that, like our traumas, our lives are always subject to re-narration. This is hopeful in that it creates a space for us to renegotiate our experience and to grow out of adversity. It also implies that what we can see at any given moment is not the whole story, and in this way suggests traumatic periods in our lives are not necessarily the end of the road, or the end of the our story. I recently ran across a quote that said, “In the end everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not yet the end.” Kogawa allows for a re-imagining of our futures.

One of my favorite lines in Lefebvre’s article regards the reference to one of Kogawa’s characters, Naomi. In a dream Naomi hears her mother’s voice say, “Find your road Naomi. I will wait for you on your road” (exp: Kogawa, quoted in Lefebvre, p.162). Even though Lefebvre doesn’t give a lot of context, I feel like Kogawa suggests that in taking a journey back to self, we can find inner truth and healing. And that in “finding our road” we can find ourselves and hopefully, a place of resilience and healing.

Lefebvre ends the article with the following: “Kogawa’s larger body of work is not resolutionary…it does not, in fact, “resolve” the traumas…these traumas are unconcludable. Instead, what can be achieved are the steps towards peace that can be found gradually in the gap between speech and silence, between memory and forgetting” (Lefebvre, p.166). If our traumas cannot be resolved- it they are inconcludable, can we still heal? Does this mean that our healing is also inconcludable or simply ever evolving? Is there a difference? Perhaps inner peace is not a destination on our road, but a journey- open to further questioning and future bends; something we constantly grow into and rearticulate…