research

I entered my PhD research in Kenya focused on deciphering the space between life and death for children dying from cancer. I held wonder about what might happen if I were to not simply observe from a distance the lives of children and their families as they entered into, persisted through, and, often, died from childhood cancer. I wondered what might be found, what might grow necessarily complicated if I were to instead participate in the work of mourning alongside, to accompany as families navigated the harsh, tender, volatile, mundane, confusing, and distinct space between. 

I entered with no pre-determined guide nor any clear expectations for what this shift from observation to participation would actually look like or entail. It has been messy and difficult and not always clear, and also entirely natural. It has been not a matter of tick boxes and perfect delineations of this and that but of choosing each action, each word, each touch, each movement toward and each movement away, with the questions: what can I do for you to feel most care? How do I show you that if you trust me with your experience, I will keep it safe? What does it look like for me to stay in your reality, to not flee from it, to be fiercely present to you and your desires? 

And what has come from it has been beautiful. Painful, yes. Challenging, incredibly so. But beautiful.