Wendy's Diary

A Tribute to Bright George “Draw your friends close, but draw your enemies closer.” We say it like a cliché. Until life forces us to understand it. I knew you for less than a year — yet it felt fuller than some decade-long friendships. Every memory begins the same way. “Sugaaaar…” The tone. The smile. The softness in your voice. You called everyone that, but somehow it always felt personal. Intentional. Warm. We are still trying to process the painful details surrounding your gruesome murder. Still trying to understand how a heart can smile in your presence and still plot in your absence. Still trying to reconcile how people we once called acquaintances — people we extended kindness to — can allow envy, greed, or hatred to ferment quietly within them. The earth lost a man. Heaven gained a soul. No human being can create even a strand of hair. Yet someone assumed the authority to end a life. That contradiction alone is unbearable. I choose to believe that nothing escapes G...

A Tribute to My Aunt They say it is Good Friday. The day Jesus died. The day sorrow met sacrifice. The day heaven went silent before resurrection broke the grave. We rejoice because He rose on the third day. But this year, I found myself standing somewhere else. Between Good Friday… and goodbye. While the world remembered the cross, I was grieving my own loss. Yes, Jesus rose in three days. Yes, resurrection is our hope. Yes, death is not the end. But the resurrection I now wait for is not in three days’ time. It is a promise for eternity. And eternity feels far when your heart is breaking. Allow me to shed these tears. Allow me to sob without being told to “be strong.” Allow me to mourn without being hurried into celebration. Because grief has its own calendar. Memories are coming in flashes — moments I cannot fully articulate. I called on Mother’s Day, but I couldn’t reach you. I had a strange feeling. I had plans to rush home and see you. I prayed for you ...

I sit among the scattered shells, A shovel in my hand; But use my fingers, gently curled, For sifting through the sand. I'm looking for something I've lost, But don't expect to find. The sand is something tangible, But I'm sifting through my mind. It's cluttered now with memories And dreams that wouldn't die, Like seagrass sometimes hides sandspurs That make the tender cry. Like broken glass or other trash, Are bitterness and fear. But buried deep within it all Are treasures I hold dear. So, deeper still, I plunge my hand And probe the tenderregions Of an angry, broken heart That knows so many seasons. Somewhere in there are treasures I still hope to find. Buried in this broken heart or in this troubled mind. ...