Hallward’s claim resonates with me when she states,” …and it just pained me so much to see him, and I would just pray for him to die.” This reminds me of when my grandmother was in the nursing home and was suffering from dementia. I would go to see her, and she would just be in so much pain and I wanted that to end for her, but I also felt awful for thinking that. I felt shame for wishing death upon my grandmother just how Hallward explained how she felt shame about wishing death upon her father but once she told her story she started to heal.
I had never realized how much I grieved for my grandmother and not for myself until Hallward had mentioned, “…I grieved my father all these years but I hadn’t actually grieved for myself, for how awful it was to wish my own father dead.” I always grieved my grandmother while she was progressively getting worse, but I never took the chance to grieve for myself and that never came to mind until I read Hallward’s words. It’s easy to get lost in your own feelings but hearing someone else’s feelings that relate to yours helps on a whole other level.
One text-to-text connection between Hallward and Davis is when Hallward discusses how when one person tells their story it is like dominoes and others tell their story and how doing this decreased the suicide rate of teens among the LGBTQ community by half in Massachusetts. It relates to when Davis talks about how when one person spoke out it started a chain reaction of colored people standing up for themselves. One movement started with Rosa Parks sitting where she wanted in the bus and now anyone can sit wherever they want to. Society has come a long way since people started telling their stories and many social changes have been made because of it.
Good text-to-self example with your grandmother.