Blood Diamond

I am still trying to find the jewel in all this shit. The dirty turgid mud of what happened. The ash

encrusted Vesuvian bodies buried in ruble, limbs curled and coiled protectively around a loved one,

mouths agape, preserved through time.

That is the memory I have of us as our third-year anniversary approaches. You, lying on the garage floor,

my frantic fingers uncoiling a blue and white rope I had never seen before. The sirens wailing in the

distance, coming closer, now footsteps approaching, someone relieving me of the rhythmic breathing into

your mouth.

Yesterday, I heard a story on the radio of a woman who wanted to find a diamond for her engagement

ring. She didn’t want no blood diamond scraped from the red earth of others’ suffering in a land she’d

never been to. She wanted to scratch her own way through the dirt and come upon it herself. So she and

her beau went to the only State Park where you could dig for diamonds and she worked from sun-up to

sun-down, through high-noon to too-tired-to-shower end-of-the-day dark when she returned to her camp.

She did it for three weeks with nothing to show for it.

Then, on the last day--you guessed it--right there by her shoe, her mud covered walk-through-hell boot, a

glint. She thought it was a dew drop and bent to pop the delicate bubble. Instead, it was a 2 + carat

diamond there at her fingertips, the third largest pulled out of that Diamond National Park. She said that

she knew it wasn’t mica because for that you needed light to make it shine and it was stumble-down dark

where she found it. There in the shadows, that shiny bit glinted in the muck and the mud and exhaustion

and perseverance.

That’s what I want. After all this crap and grief and horror and shit and hard work, this loss and great

love and achy-breaky heartache, I want to look down and find a diamond. To think it’s just another tear

drop, a glistening bit of salty dew, to touch the wet surface of my loss and find a diamond in my palm.

To realize after endless work of navigating this unbearable loss that something of incomparable value

shines through. That we were worth it. That knowing and loving you and you knowing and loving me

was the ultimate treasure.

Melisa McCampbell

8/20/25

Anti-Hero

I always said if I were to have superpowers, I wouldn’t be a hero, I’d be an anti-hero.

The person who has seen the whole picture and has come to set the scales to even, not

restore the status quo. Although fairly young, compared to my counterparts, age has

never been a factor in my suffering. As a young child, a victim of my life circumstances, I

always had a vision. God allowed immense struggle and trauma, but never took my

sight. A seer of things, I experienced things that were meant to destroy me, but a

determination set within me to see the vision God laid before me into fruition. My grief

journey started at 6 years old, having to grieve my innocence, as it was brutally stolen.

Grieving my siblings’ chance at a safe home that I, a young child unable to provide due

to a single mother struggling. Grieving my opportunity to experience events similar to

my peers due to poverty and circumstances. Grieving not having the opportunity to live

in a two-parent home with love and security. Through it all, I still had vision.

“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on

doing.”

— Epistle to the Romans 7:19

In my late teens, I earned a college scholarship. I feel the full weight of my emotions,

those bottled up, in an effort to get to the very place I am. The vision is blurry- I begin to

lose sight- I doubt my purpose, I only feel my pain- I envision life reunited with the

creator, a better existence than that I am captive to now. Situations do not take vacation

nor rest breaks- a steady stream of weary I am encapsulated in. God- take me- I cannot

endure another moment- my mind’s favorite thought. Daily wrestling with myself to keep

the path and remember the vision of my youth, although the picture is inaccessible in

my current state. God knows exactly who to send and when- almost as if it was written

before I arrived, to keep me afloat. One more day, one more moment. Thank you.

“A righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…”

— Book of Proverbs 24:16

Failures are almost a guarantee when you are enduring. Self-judgment and disgust

follow when looking at the actions and choices. A re-directing- constant behavioral

modification exercise, trying to get it right once. My mind is always clouded. Why can’t I

control myself- why am I this way? Why am I broken?

“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

— Second Epistle to the Corinthians 12:9

Thirties- life finally started making some sense again. I am getting a handle on my

situational trauma. Things happen- let’s react differently. But a loop is upon me-

unprepared for my father’s death. Back when I was 15, he came and rescued me from

the depths of my childhood hell and set me in a secure home. I would struggle

immensely trying to learn to live from love and not loss, but it is a struggle I’d choose if I

had a choice. He dies suddenly at 54, me 34- and once again my life is flipped. The first

man I learned to trust- who allowed me to be a child- not a provider- not a protector-

myself- passed. Gone, never to return. God- what are you doing? Two years GONE, no

memory, inaccessible. But this time I have started from experience, not from scratch.

Bent, but not broken.

“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and

release from darkness for the prisoners.”

— Book of Isaiah 61:1

Grief is the price we pay for love- I have learned how to be steady and at peace no

matter the storm. Storms cometh, and they shake us but like a tree planted by the

water- I shall not be moved. God gave me vision at a young age- and although I didn’t

see it- was there with me step by step by step. I was not alone at 6, just as I was not

alone at 34. Every injury- there to hold me like the cocoon of the butterfly as I

metamorphose into only what the situation could transform me into. An antihero- here to

right the wrong- to pick up those suffering and help them to reclaim the vision God gifted

them in youth. Here. And that is the greatest testimony. Sometimes remaining after the

grief is the greatest testament of God than words or a story could ever tell.

Through my trauma God gifted me the vision and knowledge to know I would be a soft

place for many in need- a beacon of light for those in darkness- and a directional arrow

for those in need of direction. The vision was given to me and the life path was set- all I

need do is endure. That does not erase the pain, because God chose you. Nor does it

guarantee completion. I am here to say it is possible- let me walk with you, showing you

the strength that is possible if we do it together and with God as our light. I am thankful

for my journey and all it has revealed.

Raynisha Mcdonald