Sara Striefel

Sara currently works as a registered nurse in a women’s clinic that serves marginalized communities. She is also a poet and nonfiction writer, with a master’s degree in English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published in literary journals such as Alice the Mag and Grapevine. In addition, she has been featured in online publications, including Sweatpants and Coffee, Down in the Dirt Magazine, and Autumn Sky Poetry. Read more at https://sarastriefel.substack.com/ instagram.com/sarastriefel/

Articles:

Communing with the Dead

There is a phone booth in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree. It was installed by Colin Campbell and Gail Lerner in honor of their two children, Ruby and Hart, who died in a 2019 car crash. It lives out there amid the tall cholla cacti and the wind that sweeps circles into the salt and sand. I have been thinking about this telephone lately, of how few spaces we have to offload our grief. In her book, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, Hope Edelman offers a handful of events that she believes have the potential to change […]

Memory Boxes Help Daughter Let Go

On Labor Day, I spent the afternoon going through memory boxes in my father’s basement. Six white cardboard containers with my name written in Sharpie. As I opened each one, the locks to hidden boxes in my head unhinged as well. I was surprised at the hollow pull when I found remnants of my mother’s delicate cursive on the backs of watercolor pastels and frayed grammar books where she’d written my name and the date. The permanence and the impermanence of ink on paper. Her presence in the midst of her absence. Her whisper in the sweep of an “S” […]

We Don’t Grieve Alone

It’s been three years since my mother joined the light, and my grief continues to evolve. Most days I am whole, planting my feet on the ground, paying my bills, feeding my children. It happens still though. Sometimes in the quiet of solitude. Sometimes in the piercing morning light, when the beauty of a snow-covered mountainside is so startling that it brings me to tears. I remember her love of everything. Everything. And for a moment I cannot breathe. It never goes away, but I have learned to live with my grief, to welcome it even. It no longer bowls […]

Hope Fatigue: Can We Keep Hope Alive?

I learned a term recently that inspired a new conversation with myself and with the world around me: Hope fatigue. Hope fatigue itself isn’t new. We’ve all experienced the feeling of getting excited about the promise of change, of “better times” ahead, only to find that life seems to stay the same, or it gets darker, scarier, more uncertain. Even though we were initially excited, and maybe even inspired, what we’re left with is one more piece of evidence that, actually, things never change. Maybe they never will. And if I keep fighting to keep hope alive, even in the […]

Mantras for Mourning: How to Coexist with Grief

Mantras for Mourning Two and a half years after my mother’s death, I still discover unexpected ways in which grief opens my heart. I am learning that grief, while painful and disorienting at times, can also offer opportunities for profound growth and fresh awareness. It still hurts, often. But I have chosen not to wall myself off when the ache bubbles up. The trick is learning how to coexist with grief so that I can continue to be present and heal. My family recently spent three glorious months on the beaches of Costa Rica. We explored and played and bathed in […]

Through the Holidays, Grief Just Is

I sat down today to write about grief during the holidays. I started and stopped. Wrote a paragraph and then deleted it. I left the page to read someone else’s wise words, picking through the web of loss that spans the globe, searching for insight from others that have traveled this path before me and found grace in the process. I took a long walk. I asked my mother (gone from this earthy plane for over two years now) for guidance. Grief Is After some time, I came back to the page and saw that two words remained at the top […]