Yesterday.
What would I do without her. Without this place. Without this strange, sacred pocket of the world where my grief is allowed to breathe without being shushed or redirected. A place where no one flinches when I talk about my dead child. A place where the air itself feels like it knows what loss is.
It is terrifying to think about it, but it is the truth. I would not be here. Not in this body. Not on this earth. Because the world does not know how to hold the death of a child. Not in conversation. Not in daily life. Not in the quiet moments where the ache becomes too loud. But she does. Dr. Jo does.
She is my grief guru. My teacher. My mirror. She took her own pain and built something unimaginable from it. Her daughter died. And out of that life-shattering loss she created the MISS Foundation and then the Carefarm. She carved this place out of dust and tears and raw human suffering. She created a world where grief is allowed to exist without apology.
Yesterday I spent time there. Away from the city that exhausts me. Away from the rushed routines and the noise and the pretending that everyone else seems so good at. I do not pretend my grief is not here. It is always here. Right beside me. Right inside me. At the farm it does not feel like something to hide. It feels like something that belongs.
I walked through the fields, breathing in the scent of hay and winter sun and that strange feeling of peace that only comes when you are surrounded by beings who understand pain. Animals with broken ribs. Animals who were beaten. Animals who were starved. Animals who were abandoned. Animals who came inches from death and somehow survived. They look at you like they already know you. Like they recognize the fracture in your chest.
I took Poppy with me. Because sitting in a classroom all day is its own kind of scam. Because life is happening out here. Because I want her to learn what compassion looks like in real form, not in a worksheet or a fucking math test. I watched her kneel down next to animals who were once terrified of human hands. I watched her gently stroke a goat with scars down its spine. I watched her whisper to a horse who had been so abused it did not trust people for years. I watched her face change as she listened to Jo talk about the children whose parents come here after unimaginable loss.
Poppy saw real life yesterday. She saw pain and resilience standing side by side. She saw what it means to show up for something hurting and not turn away. School cannot teach her that. Only moments like this can.
And Jo teaches it without trying. She teaches it by existing. She teaches it by living her grief out loud. She teaches it by taking in broken animals and broken parents and offering them a place to breathe without judgment.
Yesterday reminded me again why this place keeps me alive. Why she keeps me alive. The farm is not just land. It is not just rescue animals. It is not just a grief retreat. It is a lifeline woven out of the worst kind of pain and turned into something sacred. Something real. Something that holds.
I left yesterday feeling cracked open and somehow steadier at the same time. That is what Dr. Jo has given the world. A place where broken people do not have to pretend they are not broken. A place where love and grief sit at the same table and no one runs away.
Jo, you are my forever everything. Thank you for what you have created. It has been the worst and most beautiful privilege of my life to stand beside you and witness the way you turned your daughter’s death into a place that gives the rest of us a reason to keep breathing.
If you want to learn more about the MISS Foundation or the Carefarm, or if you want to support the animals and grieving families who find refuge there, I will share the information below. Every bit of help goes straight to compassion.
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