An Ephemeral Experience of Permanence by Amanda St Claire
The epoch of tiramisu in bed on a Saturday morning. Of sharing soap, of rituals, what it means to live a thousand lifetimes within a year, knowing your mother w...
Category: Grief
Healing/COVID/7 Minute Read/Adversity/Black Memoirs Matter/Escape/Featured/Family/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Justice/Literature/Loss/nonfiction/Race Matters/Society
How Can Black People Go Camping at a Time Like This? by Debra Stone
We bought the trailer after Trump became president, a safety net, in the probability of needing a means of escape. Maybe Canada then on to Cuba? At least it eas...
Dementia/Make Me Cry/10 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Featured/Family/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Memoir/Memory/On Memory/Parenting
Vigil by Shirlee Jellum
*Featured Artwork by Tara Koger/Columbus Community Deathcare “…when the time comes to let it go…” —Mary Oliver I Outside the door I linger, close my eyes, breat...
The Sweetness of His Breath by Kristen Lambertin
My son looked so small in the hospital bed. “Will this change my life? Will I still be able to play soccer?” he asked. “Yes and yes,” I said, “but not necess...
Make Me Cry/3 Minute Read/Adoption/Featured/Grief/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/morality/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Parenting/PTSD/Race Matters/Society
Atlantic Terminal 2015 by Tanya E. Friedman
The child whose hand I held, my daughter whose brown skin matched the boys and the police and not my whiteness: I lifted her, not to see the scene, but the oppo...
5 Minute Read/Aging/Escape/Featured/Faith/Family/Fathers/Food/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Loss/Love/Memoir/nonfiction/Religion/Storytelling
Pesach 5770 by Deborah Adelman
On this night, I have to beg permission from the hospital authorities to let you leave so you can join the Seder...I don’t look up to the heavens when I am on t...
3 Minute Read/ACEs/Addiction/Adversity/Childhood/Escape/Featured/Fathers/Grief/Loss/Memoir/nonfiction/trauma
Frankenstein’s Daughter by Sherry Shahan
Maybe I should tell her that Daddy drives with his knees while poking triangle holes in beer cans? Or that he once fell out his car door while rounding a corner...
Healing/10 Minute Read/Art/Environmental/Featured/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Memory/nonfiction/personal essay/Society/Storytelling/trauma/war
Sorrow Shared: Rituals. by Anneke Campbell
As we reach a million COVID deaths in the USA and counting, how do we mourn such a large loss as a country? How do we hold all those families who are coping wit...
5 Minute Read/Divorce/Featured/Faith/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Love/Memoir/men/Mental Illness/Relationships/Religion/trauma
A Trip to Trust by Catherine Vance
The altar is a yellow pine table, an unadorned platform for the laying out of grief and slivers of hope. It befits the geography of these mountains. It’s mess...
7 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Childhood/Divorce/Featured/Fathers/Funny/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/morality/nonfiction/Society/trauma
The Peppermint Kid by Jeff Veazey
In short order, I went from liar to thief. I took my brother's silver dollar collection. No one spent old silver dollars, so when I tried, the manager of the 7...
3 Minute Read/ACEs/Divorce/Escape/Fathers/Food/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Loss/Memoir/Mental Health/nonfiction/Sexism/trauma
Panama, 1994, The Jungle by Mishele Maron
As a girl coming-of-age in the late 1980’s, I was told I could go anywhere and be anything I wanted to be, but of course, no one could tell me how to do this, o...
Dementia/12 minute read/Adversity/Aging/Alzheimer's/Art/Being Body/Family/Food/Grief/Health/Identity/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Memory/nonfiction/Sexism/Society/Survival
“Iris on My Mind” by Odeta Xheka
Most days, I manage to distract myself from the horror of losing my bearing and blurring the lines in the fog of forgetfulness. I carry the markers for Alzheime...
Dementia/7 Minute Read/Aging/Bi-Polar/Cancer/Depression/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Grief/Health/Identity/Literature/Loss/Love/Medicine/Memory/Mental Illness/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/trauma
The Hope of Better Hearing Aids by Rosann Tung
I try to cool the heat in my cheeks that her sarcastic “wise, rich daughter” comment brings on. Her walker embarrasses me, too – unsightly, attention-seeking, d...
Ripple Effect by Janis Butler Holm
As a little girl reading fairy tales, I came across the word “replied.” Though a bookish child, I somehow read “replied” as “rippled,” as in “Because I said so,...
15 Minute Read/Adversity/Family/Fathers/Grief/Incarceration/Justice/Loss/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Parenting
The Sentencing by Wendy Swift
The waiting was unnerving. Alli asked almost daily when Daddy would go to jail. For a second-grader, jail was something imagined from cartoons. We did little to...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Featured/Faith/Family/Fathers/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction/Parenting/Relationships/trauma
Haunting Words by Emma Rose
I am lazy, fat, asinine, stupid. I still feel his red hot anger, the spit on my face, and the insults flying toward me. The feelings and labels remain, despite ...
10 Minute Read/Featured/Family/Grief/Guns/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/nonfiction/Society
Name is a Four-Letter Word by Chris Parent
*Featured Image by Rollin Jewett A few days after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, I received a call from an organization ...
5 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Being Body/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Loss/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction
Telephone Booth by Molly Bashaw
Working with the bees, I am not just looking at the same insects my mother once looked at, I am also becoming her. I am lying down in her body and standing up. ...
5 Minute Read/Bi-Polar/Depression/Grief/Loss/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Regret/Suicide
End Of Message by Jen Waldron
If you had asked me before this tragedy what the chance was of her committing suicide, I would have said zero percent. Zero. Ask me now and I’ll tell you, if it...
Forgive Me by Lisa Mae DeMasi
It was only a matter of time before one of us was going to break down and scream, beat our fists against the van’s upholstery in disbelief and frustration.