Ann, your response highlights how places like Fort Snelling are never only historical sites. They are also repositories of personal memory, carrying the stories of parents, grandparents, veterans, and families alongside the larger narratives of the land itself. That is part of what makes Teri's piece so moving; it honors the deeply personal while refusing to ignore the broader history surrounding it. Thank you for sharing your connection to this place and for reminding us that remembrance is always both collective and deeply individual.
Thank you for sharing this Ann. It does help deepen the story. When I learned of all the history of the land in and around Fort Snelling, I had to find a way to weave it into one of the stories.
My dad’s heritage includes Scotland - during WWII he was in Scotland for training. I was sitting near his grave at Fort Snelling on one visit several years ago talking to him when all of a sudden I hear Scottish bagpipes. I looked up and a few feet away a man in a kilt was playing. He played for about 20 minutes and moved on. I was sobbing. These places are sacred.
this is one of those synchronistic and sacred moments. Your dad is a special one. Maybe I’ll see you at Fort Snelling someday. I’ll be the one with the bucket, stiff brush, sponge, butter knife, and clippers!
Teri, the line "This land is so full of grief, and I only have one bucket and two hands" feels like the emotional center of the piece. Alice cannot resolve the contradictions she encounters, her love for her uncle, the history beneath the ground, the injustices of the present, and yet she refuses to turn away from any of them. That willingness to tend what is hers to tend, even when it cannot heal everything, gives the story its power. Thank you for writing so honestly about the burden of carrying multiple truths at once and the quiet acts of care that help us remain human in the presence of them.
OMgosh, there are so many contradictions going on inside the bodies of us Minnesotans these days. and all the things going on in NJ are only making them more loud.
and all we can do is tend to what is doable and right in front of us. so we keep doing that.
Teri, what strikes me is that the story never asks Alice to resolve those contradictions before acting. She cleans the headstone, honors her uncle, wrestles with history, and carries concern for the present all at the same time. That feels true to how many people are living right now: holding grief, love, anger, memory, and responsibility in the same body without the luxury of sorting them neatly. Perhaps that is why the bucket and two hands image lingers; it reminds us that faithfulness is rarely about carrying everything, but about tending what is ours to tend while trusting others to do the same. Thank you for continuing to write stories that make room for both the complexity and the humanity of this moment.
you’re gonna love the end of the story…that comes at the end of the chapter. The whole chapter is about different expressions of Grief that the WOMN experience. I’ll publish the chapter as a whole for paid subscribers at the end of June. In the meantime, you’ll get a story about grief from different women every Tuesday this month.
Teri, what excites me about that structure is that it honors grief as something larger than a single experience. Too often we speak about grief as though it has one face, when in reality it arrives through loss, memory, injustice, love, place, identity, hope, and longing, sometimes all at once. Alice's story already suggests that grief is not merely something to endure but something that can deepen our capacity to see, remember, and care. Thank you for the preview; knowing that each woman will illuminate a different expression of grief makes me even more interested to see how the full chapter weaves those individual stories into a larger collective witness.
My eyes are filled with tears. My parents are buried at Fort Snelling and I have deep memories about visiting them. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Ann, your response highlights how places like Fort Snelling are never only historical sites. They are also repositories of personal memory, carrying the stories of parents, grandparents, veterans, and families alongside the larger narratives of the land itself. That is part of what makes Teri's piece so moving; it honors the deeply personal while refusing to ignore the broader history surrounding it. Thank you for sharing your connection to this place and for reminding us that remembrance is always both collective and deeply individual.
agreed.
Thank you for sharing this Ann. It does help deepen the story. When I learned of all the history of the land in and around Fort Snelling, I had to find a way to weave it into one of the stories.
My dad’s heritage includes Scotland - during WWII he was in Scotland for training. I was sitting near his grave at Fort Snelling on one visit several years ago talking to him when all of a sudden I hear Scottish bagpipes. I looked up and a few feet away a man in a kilt was playing. He played for about 20 minutes and moved on. I was sobbing. These places are sacred.
this is one of those synchronistic and sacred moments. Your dad is a special one. Maybe I’ll see you at Fort Snelling someday. I’ll be the one with the bucket, stiff brush, sponge, butter knife, and clippers!
I can feel the sadness as it is woven into the words of this essay. A poignantly, moving, beautiful story.
Thank you Nancy.
Teri, the line "This land is so full of grief, and I only have one bucket and two hands" feels like the emotional center of the piece. Alice cannot resolve the contradictions she encounters, her love for her uncle, the history beneath the ground, the injustices of the present, and yet she refuses to turn away from any of them. That willingness to tend what is hers to tend, even when it cannot heal everything, gives the story its power. Thank you for writing so honestly about the burden of carrying multiple truths at once and the quiet acts of care that help us remain human in the presence of them.
OMgosh, there are so many contradictions going on inside the bodies of us Minnesotans these days. and all the things going on in NJ are only making them more loud.
and all we can do is tend to what is doable and right in front of us. so we keep doing that.
Teri, what strikes me is that the story never asks Alice to resolve those contradictions before acting. She cleans the headstone, honors her uncle, wrestles with history, and carries concern for the present all at the same time. That feels true to how many people are living right now: holding grief, love, anger, memory, and responsibility in the same body without the luxury of sorting them neatly. Perhaps that is why the bucket and two hands image lingers; it reminds us that faithfulness is rarely about carrying everything, but about tending what is ours to tend while trusting others to do the same. Thank you for continuing to write stories that make room for both the complexity and the humanity of this moment.
you’re gonna love the end of the story…that comes at the end of the chapter. The whole chapter is about different expressions of Grief that the WOMN experience. I’ll publish the chapter as a whole for paid subscribers at the end of June. In the meantime, you’ll get a story about grief from different women every Tuesday this month.
Teri, what excites me about that structure is that it honors grief as something larger than a single experience. Too often we speak about grief as though it has one face, when in reality it arrives through loss, memory, injustice, love, place, identity, hope, and longing, sometimes all at once. Alice's story already suggests that grief is not merely something to endure but something that can deepen our capacity to see, remember, and care. Thank you for the preview; knowing that each woman will illuminate a different expression of grief makes me even more interested to see how the full chapter weaves those individual stories into a larger collective witness.