Emily McElroy

“One of the hallmarks of lamentation is its excess. Talking becomes screaming, singing becomes wailing. Mourners act out their pain on their own bodies, tearing their clothes and hair, beating their chests, even inflicting injuries. This intensity sets it apart from other forms of public witnessing. Lamentation is communication as it reels toward the unsayable, the inexpressible pain of loss. I see in practices of exhumation, in the lengths gone to recover the dead after annihilating violence, something of this excess. The enormous forensic undertakings are scientific and legal efforts, but they are also expressions of pain and acts of faith. As a postcard pinned to an office door at the FAFG forensic laboratory says: “Archeology is my religion.”
― Alexa Hagerty

“Making a dessert is nothing less than crafting a smile.”
― B. Dylan Hollis, Baking Across America: A Vintage Recipe Road Trip

“three generations of women sit around the enormous kitchen table--some hunched over cups of coffee, some hunched over cups of tea. despite our differences, we are all laughing so hard that the thunder outside must compete with us. she can't sit here with us anymore & I'm sure we can all feel the heaviness of her absence, but even when every chair is taken & everyone else has to stand, it still feels like there will always be a space for her.”
― Amanda Lovelace, The Princess Saves Herself in This One

“It is one story among many. Every bone tells a life. Every person lost was a world.”
― Alexa Hagerty, Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains