“With the wildflowers, the songbirds, under oaks and pines, on the trail was where my new journey began.”

After moving from Manhattan to Houston, Isobella Jade's life shattered. In brief vignettes, Jade shares her emotional journey through motherhood and grief after a traumatic divorce.

Under a canopy of pines, Jade embarks on mending herself while walking on trails at a nature preserve near her home. The natural world becomes her place of solace through the seasons, as though each step forward allows her to emerge with new energy. In her displacement she finds unexpected connection while admiring the cypress, oak and magnolia trees and noticing the fascinating lives of the southern flora and wildlife around her.

Walking with nostalgia for her northeastern roots, the wildflowers seem to carry Jade from the ground up while she finds her new beginning on the trail.

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Healing through heirlooms

Isobella Jade details her emotional journey through sudden loss and the objects found in her father's car after he unexpectedly died in a fire at his home. Jade's bittersweet tale is at once a meditation on loss and making sense of grief through heirlooms and of turning a tragic event into one of life's richest experiences. 

A tattered wallet, a Giants hat, a pocket knife, a jacket, a clipboard, a thermos and other unexpected keepsakes create a doorway for memories left behind, healing and ultimately forgiveness and acceptance. While Jade searches for other artifacts of her father's life she explores painful years through his alcohol addiction and depression, and his many complexities. As though taking a peek into the memory box she creates, Jade writes affectingly about being a runner, and how it shaped her early life, laying the foundation that kept her relationship with her father from crumbling. Anyone who holds onto memories of lost loved ones will be captivated by Jade's absorbing look at the significance cherished objects can hold in our lives.

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“These keepsakes helped me navigate my grief, and learning more about my father’s life after he died helped me cope with not getting to say goodbye.”