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/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. ...
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.