Little Korie
full circle moments on the journey home
As I finished watching the first season of Invincible the other night, I was brought to tears *spoiler alert* by the interaction between Mark and his father, Omni-Man.
Omni-Man, angry and bewildered, asks Mark why he would choose a life where he has to say goodbye to everyone he’s ever known; why he would accept being alone for 500 years. Through broken teeth and tears, Mark responds that he would still have his dad. And maybe Omni-Man hadn’t thought of that. Maybe he hadn’t realized that it could all be worth it, just to know that at least one person would stand beside you and move through time and space with you.
I keep returning to that moment, because it echoes something deeper I’ve been learning: that what sustains us is not just survival, but the spaces and relationships that make survival meaningful. The places: physical, emotional, ancestral, where we are held, where we can return and be restored.
Little Korie was crying because that version of me will always miss my mom and my family. That longing hasn’t disappeared. But this version of me understands something more now. I am still navigating grief, but it has changed shape so many times that now I mostly rest in awe of how beautiful life is, and how proud I am of creating the life Little Korie once dreamed about.
I keep seeing her: the version of me who played on the flatbed trailer as if it were her stage. The one who lined up all her dolls and stuffed animals to read them stories she had just written. The one who took song requests from the corner of the family room with her karaoke machine. The one who ran, skipped, played, and danced with so much freedom and joy.
She is still so vibrant.
And lately, I recognize that I am not just remembering her, I am returning to her.
In homeplace, bell hooks writes about the radical power of spaces where we can reclaim ourselves, where dignity is restored, where we are nurtured back into wholeness in a world that so often tries to fragment us. I realize now that I am becoming that space for myself. And even more beautifully, I am finding it reflected in the communities and conversations surrounding me.
There is something sacred about how many of us are talking about returning right now. Returning to self. Returning to joy. Returning to truth. It feels aligned, like a collective remembering. And I am so deeply grateful to be in conversation with people who are also choosing to come home to themselves; who are building and tending to homeplaces within and around each other.
With every step forward in my recovery, I feel myself coming back. Grief and abuse stole so much of my mobility and dimmed my light for so long, but I don’t live there anymore. What’s emerging now feels like truth, like the most authentic version of me finally breaking through again.
I’ve heard it said lately that “becoming is really returning,” and this unfolding, this cracking open and rebirth, is proving that to be true. So much is affirming who I am. One of my favorite artists, Jacob Banks, recently sang to his younger self, “oh what a joy it is being you,” and I feel that with every cell in my body. I love returning to myself and rediscovering the beautiful person I have always been.
And in that return, I feel my mother more clearly.
Lately, it feels like I can see myself the way she always did. Her presence grows louder as my birthday approaches, as if she still can’t wait to celebrate her greatest victory. I’ve always known she was near, but now there’s even language for it; science that names what I’ve always felt.
It’s called microchimerism: my mother’s cells live within me and always will. What a powerful homeplace that is.
A living, breathing reminder that I am never alone. That I carry her, and her love, forward through all time and space. That even in loss, there is continuity. Even in grief, there is presence.
Little Korie, I am so grateful, not just to be growing into the life you dreamed for us, but to be returning to the home we have always been.
