Ashes and Roots

There’s a strange still­ness that set­tles over the hills after Christmas — the kind that comes when the lights are put away, the gath­er­ings are over, and every­one goes back to their real lives. The kind where the air itself feels like it’s hold­ing its breath.

Some peo­ple greet the New Year with ener­gy and expec­ta­tion. Others — espe­cial­ly those who’ve known loss — enter it like step­ping bare­foot onto cold ground.

I’ve lived both.

Grief has a way of undo­ing you, pulling your life up by the roots until every­thing feels scat­tered and raw. But the hills taught me some­thing I didn’t under­stand until years lat­er: new growth nev­er starts on clean ground. It begins in places that first knew fire.

The First Loss: When Great Gran Became a Spirit Guide

I was only ten when I lost my Great Gran — the woman who raised me on bis­cuits, hymns, and the kind of faith that comes from liv­ing close to the land. Her house was my safe place, her arms my refuge, her porch my first sanc­tu­ary. Losing her was the first time I knew what it meant for the world to tilt.

But she nev­er real­ly left me.

I have felt her pres­ence more times than I can count — in dreams, in qui­et morn­ings, in the sud­den warmth that hits my chest when I need courage. I hear her voice in the back of my mind, steady and sure: “A wound will talk to you before it heals. You listen.”

Even as a child, I knew she was guid­ing me, hand on my shoul­der, whis­per­ing direc­tion when life felt dark. And Lord, life would get dark.

The Decade of Ash: Losing My Dad, Losing My Mother, Losing My World

The years that turned me to ash came much later.

Long before I lost my moth­er in 2025, she had already lost her­self. She was only twelve when her own moth­er died — just a girl, stand­ing in a grief far too big for her small body. Her father wasn’t able to guide her through it, and no one taught her how to car­ry sor­row with­out let­ting it hol­low her out. So she did what chil­dren do when they’re left alone with pain: she buried it deep and grew around it crooked.

She learned to sur­vive, but she nev­er learned to heal.

And that unhealed grief — cold, bit­ter, angry — even­tu­al­ly poured into me. Not by choice, but by inheritance.

Then came my dad’s pan­cre­at­ic can­cer, a slow, cru­el undo­ing that unrav­eled all the remain­ing threads hold­ing our fam­i­ly togeth­er. When I lost him, I lost my moth­er at the exact same time. She clung to her grief the only way she knew how: tight­ly, fierce­ly, destruc­tive­ly. Her pain spilled out as rage, and she scorched every­thing that resem­bled joy. It was as if the world had taught her that the only way to sur­vive loss was to set fire to any­thing that dared to com­fort her.

It felt like watch­ing a for­est fire swal­low a whole moun­tain­side, know­ing there was noth­ing I could do to stop it.

But the deep­est unrav­el­ing came in the year before my moth­er died — a year that brought a betray­al so unex­pect­ed, so cut­ting, I still strug­gle to describe its shape. People I trust­ed turned on me, and almost every­one I once held dear stepped away, leav­ing me stand­ing in the smoke of a life I thought was solid.

That was the year the ground began to give way beneath me.

And then, in February of 2025, my moth­er died too.

I had lost her long before her heart stopped beat­ing, but her actu­al pass­ing car­ried a final, bru­tal still­ness — the kind that shakes loose every illu­sion you’ve been cling­ing to. The kind that leaves you star­ing at the charred remains of a sto­ry you once believed could still be saved.

Through it all, three peo­ple remained unwa­ver­ing:
my hus­band, my son, and one sweet friend who showed up with the kind of loy­al­ty I will nev­er forget.

It was a pair of years marked by end­ings — old iden­ti­ties burned, rela­tion­ships sev­ered, the life I knew swal­lowed whole by flame.

I didn’t feel like soil that could grow any­thing.
I didn’t feel root­ed.
I felt like ash.

What Burnt Ground Makes Possible

In Appalachia, we under­stand burn scars. We know win­ter strips a moun­tain bare. We know the way a field looks after a con­trolled burn — black, brit­tle, still smoking.

But we also know this: Burnt ground is often the most fer­tile of all.

The nutri­ents in the ash — painful as they are — become the soil’s rich­est offering.

And slow­ly, gen­tly, with­out fan­fare, life reappears:

• First, as a shoot bare­ly break­ing the surface
• Then, as wild­flower patch­es where noth­ing used to grow
• Then, as a hill­side reborn

Grief works this way, too.

The year every­thing burned down in my life, some­thing else began beneath the sur­face. Quietly. Invisibly. Tender and green.

Possibility.
Clarity.
Truth.
And even­tu­al­ly — hope.

Roots That Survive the Fire

Fire takes the leaves, the branch­es, some­times the tree itself. But it rarely takes the roots.

And the roots in my life — the ones my Great Gran plant­ed in me — sur­vived every loss:

• The wis­dom she whis­pered into my bones
• The faith she mod­eled through her living
• The belong­ing she gave me when I had no oth­er home
• The soft­ness she taught me was not weak­ness but strength

Even in the worst sea­sons, when grief hol­lowed me out, her voice guid­ed me like a lantern swing­ing in the dark.

My heal­ing began the moment I remem­bered I came from women who knew how to rise — not because life was kind, but because they were root­ed deep.

Post-Holiday Heartbreak and the Quiet Work of Beginning Again

The sea­son right after Christmas is one of the hard­est for griev­ing folks. The world returns to its rou­tine, but grief doesn’t have a cal­en­dar. Everyone else snaps back to nor­mal while your heart is still kneel­ing in the ruins.

January car­ries a qui­et ache — espe­cial­ly when you’ve buried par­ents, faced betray­al, or had to rebuild a life from scratch.

But maybe that’s why so many spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions begin the New Year with fire, ash­es, reflec­tion, or let­ting go. Not because the pain is gone, but because the soil is ready.

For many of us, the truth is sim­ple: We are start­ing this year car­ry­ing both ash­es and roots.

What Renewal Actually Looks Like

Renewal isn’t big or dramatic.

It shows up in the small­est, soft­est ways:

• The first morn­ing you wake up with­out dread
• A laugh you didn’t expect
• A mem­o­ry that hurts, but doesn’t ruin the day
• Trusting some­one new, even if only a little
• A prayer that returns to your lips after months of silence
• Feeling your Great Gran’s pres­ence steady­ing you again

Renewal is not the return of who you were — it is the emer­gence of who you’re becoming.

And becom­ing is holy work.

An Appalachian Theology of Healing

In my own life — in the mem­oir I’m still liv­ing even as I write it — heal­ing has nev­er been a straight line. It’s a spi­ral. You return to the same places, but at a deep­er lev­el each time.

The hills have their own the­ol­o­gy — one old­er and gen­tler than the doc­trines humans argue about.

It teach­es that:

• God is found in the ordi­nary and the overlooked
• Healing nev­er hap­pens fast, but it always hap­pens deeply
• Grief is a teacher, not an enemy
• The dead aren’t gone; they walk with us
• Our ances­tors help us rise when we can’t rise on our own
• Fire clears what needs to go, even when it feels cruel
• Roots sur­vive storms that flat­ten every­thing above ground

The moun­tains don’t rush their renew­al. They don’t apol­o­gize for their bare branch­es. They don’t hide their burn scars. And when spring comes, they bloom right over the black­ened places.

That blooming—that insis­tence on life after fire—is the faith that saved me.

Not the faith of cer­tain­ty, but the faith of sur­vival. Not the faith of stained glass, but the faith of moun­tain­sides and kitchen tables and whis­pered prayers. Not the faith of per­fect doc­trine, but the faith of imper­fect women who loved me into becoming.

The moun­tains show us that what has burned is not beyond repair. What has been stripped bare is not beyond beau­ty. What has weath­ered long win­ters is not beyond blooming.

So will you. So will I. So will all of us learn­ing to grow again after loss, car­ry­ing the kind of faith that rises—slowly, stubbornly—through the ash.

Beginning Again

If you’re step­ping into this New Year car­ry­ing grief, know this:

You are not behind. You are not bro­ken. You are not fail­ing at healing.

You are win­ter­ing — and win­ter is not death; it is preparation.

Your roots are still alive beneath the frost. Your sto­ry is still unfold­ing. Your ash­es are becom­ing soil.

And when spring comes — gen­tly, qui­et­ly, on its own tim­ing — you will rise.

Because the hills have taught us well:

Life grows back.
Even here.
Especially here.