Atmospheric River by Cyndy Cendagorta
I never thought of our river as hungry until it swallowed Schafer whole, until he breathed water instead of air. He and some friends doused themselves in Jim Be...
Category: Grief
Bereavement by Lauren Teller
A friend, or a date, or a stranger who spotted him lying in the street, a person brave enough to touch a seizing, unconscious man, would search Eric’s pants for...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Aging/Childhood/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Loss/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships/Secrets/Sexism/Society/Survival
My Mother’s Back by Mary Zelinka
Her admission that her diagnosis was terrible news showed a vulnerability in her I had never before witnessed. I had believed that nothing ever weighed on her,...
5 Minute Read/Addiction/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Grief/Loss/Love/nonfiction/Parenting/personal essay/Regret/Relationships/war
King’s X and Cabbadoni by Marguerite Welch
Life with Dad was an endless game. We shot candles out of Mother's silver candelabra on the picnic table. I learned to drive racing the jeep around hay bales in...
#Recovery Runner Up/15 Minute Read/Adoption/Contests and Prizes/Domestic Violence/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/nonfiction/Recovery/trauma
Little One by Lisa Hayes-Minney
I rubbed the outside of my own hip, remembering what a kick from a steel-toed boot felt like when I was once curled up in a ball on the ground. I had old injuri...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Art/Being Body/Childhood/childhood sexual abuse/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Loss/MeToo/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Secrets/Society/Survival
Evolving Body Language:Five Photographs by Toni La Ree Bennett
My left leg is stuck out as if I was on the verge of going somewhere. My mother will meet him for the first time three months from now.
The Understory by Buffy Barfoot
*Featured Artwork by Mali Fischer The word understory was gifted to me by a dear friend, as many good things are. Its meaning can be assumed, because all humans...
20 Minute Read/Addiction/Family/Grief/Institutions/Literature/Loss/Mental Illness/nonfiction/Recovery/Survival
Please Survive by Catharine Lucas
For years, I believed I could FIX my son, control, restrict, protect him, by sheer force of will. When that didn’t work, I’d throw up my hands in despair and tr...
10 Minute Read/Being Body/Divorce/Domestic Violence/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Loss/Love/On Memory/Recovery/trauma
What To Wear To Bankruptcy Court By By Nan McKernon
How does one find self-worth standing before the evidence of broken dreams, unrealized potential, and past mistakes? This is what plagued me as I stared at the ...
7 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Childhood/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mommy Dearest
And Away She Goes by Renee C. Winter
Gradually Mother’s cooking faded, along with her tan. No longer in the kitchen when I rushed home from school, she’d be lounging on the cushions of our faux vel...
7 Minute Read/Aging/Being Body/Childhood/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Health/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Mental Health/Mental Illness/nonfiction/PTSD/Spirituality/Survival/trauma
Savasana by Heather Gemmen Wilson
When I was slim, I communicated with my whole body in large, confident gestures; I enjoyed being front and center. But I’m no longer thin. To deal with difficul...
Wish You Were Here by Sam Watermeier
By morning, there were no pauses left to count. The winter chill crept into the room as Dad lay lifeless.
15 Minute Read/Cancer/Escape/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Grief/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mommy Dearest/nonfiction/Relationships
Anyway – A Memoir Excerpt by Barbara Tyler
His quiet Southern lilt didn’t match what he was saying. There should have been magnolia petals falling out of his mouth or some exhaustive yarn about his mothe...
10 Minute Read/Craft Essays/Family/Fathers/Grief/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Love/Memory/nonfiction/On Writing/On Memory/personal essay/Storytelling/writing
Burying the Cat by Teresa Sutton
Stories are my past. They bob along a lazy river waiting to be plucked up, cherished, and set back down to drift. But they are images, merely snapshots in free ...
All That Carry On…: Oktoberfest by Ellen O’Donnell
After August 31, the good mornings and goodnights disappeared. In the push/pull of bipolar, as he muddled through the anhedonia, ambivalence, and anxiety, his c...
7 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Grief/Literature/Loss/Mental Health/nonfiction/PTSD/trauma
Very Important People by Gina DeMillo Wagner
You want to tell him you wish you could have gone too. That your mother never picked up the pieces. That there was never enough after he left. Not enough love, ...
Waterbabies by Heather Diamond
When he arrives, I am holding the paper bag (because the woman is always holding the bag) they gave each of us in the recovery room where one brash young woman ...
20 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Featured/Family/Funny/Grief/Health/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Love/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction/On Memory/personal essay
Debris by Cindy Bradley
After hip surgery, my father’s memory is all over the map. As he recuperates in rehab, he tells us he’s been to Spain, England, Oakland and even Kabul, all in t...
15 Minute Read/Family/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Love/Memoir/nonfiction/On Memory/Recovery/Regret/trauma/2018 Recovery Essay Award Winners
Losing My Words by Author Evelyn Krieger
If recovery means you are no longer sick, or even that you are simply functioning again, then perhaps I have recovered.
Fifty Miles by Sheryl St. Germain
If I were a religious person, I would say something blessed me that day. But I’m not a religious person. Perhaps some part of me believed, as I still do, in the...