Keeping the dove
Claiming peace, not only in death, but in life
My 13-year-old is my unofficial social media advisor. A few months ago, when I first started writing this Substack, he looked over my shoulder. “Uh, Mom?” he said, very gently. “You might not know this, but that emoji? The dove? That's what people use on Instagram when someone dies. Like RIP.”
I looked it up. He was right.
But I kept it anyway. Because to me, it’s a peace dove. A symbol of idealism in leadership. I wasn’t ready to let it go.
A few weeks ago, he saw me drafting again. “Mom,” he said, still patient, but a little more direct this time. “Just reminding you that the dove means death. I don’t know if that’s what you want people to think. Maybe try the otter emoji instead? That’s a cute one.”
I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. About peace and death. About why I’m so attached to this tiny symbol. About what it means to claim peace as my work.
I remember a sign I first saw twenty years ago.
In my second year of teaching, we welcomed a new principal. Her name was Tonya Porter. I had been part of the search committee, and we were all eagerly anticipating her arrival. One of the first things I noticed when I walked into the office that summer was a new sign on the principal’s door. A tiny square with a quote:
I was surprised. She hadn’t seemed like an activist. She certainly wasn’t a hippie. But there it was.
The more I got to know her, the more I realized that peace was the core of why Tonya Porter did what she did.
Before coming to our school, she had been the lower school head at the United Nations International School in New York, where she taught the children of diplomats working for peace. Kids at UNIS had peace talks. Peace circles. Once a year, they made a whole-school peace mandala out of flowers.
Tonya Porter taught me it was okay to admit I was working for peace. It didn’t make me a hopeless idealist or unserious. It could be a legitimate driver for my professional career.
I needed that. It buoyed me for moments when I might otherwise have learned to be ashamed of my idealism (“I'm not into all that world peace talk," another boss once told me. "I'm a pragmatist, not an idealist.”).
I started to reclaim the voice of my nine-year-old self, the one who wore yellow peace sign earrings and wrote “peace through out [sic] the world” on her Christmas list.
Tonya helped me stand a little taller.
So here’s my truth: I am working for peace.
It still feels scary to admit. Like it’s not the right moment to be banging a drum about this.
But I am sending three teenagers into this world, and I don’t really have time to wait for a better moment to talk about it.
My uncle died recently. My aunt shared a beautiful tribute written by his hospice team, and also this Celtic blessing, which she sang for him:
It was just what I needed to help me face the world this morning.
As I copied it onto a notecard, it struck me that the blessing of “Deep Peace” is equally beautiful to offer in life as it is in death.
And that brought me back to the dove emoji. Peace may come with death, yes. And also, peace is something to work toward in our living world. Right here, in the midst of the noise and trouble.
So I’m keeping my peace dove (even though the otter is really cute).
And tomorrow, I’m going to wake up and try loving the world all over again.
🕊️
SAM