MELANCHOLAI by Tomislav Silepeter
I am here, but I'm not just like you I am not home.
Category: Loss
Healing/Asian American Pacific Islander/10 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Loss/Memoir/morality/Society/Survival/trauma/war
Years in a Pigsty by Sue Tong
As a child, I witnessed the brutal torture and beatings that my mother, a teacher, endured at the hands of a gang of violent students, the Red Guards. The image...
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...
10 Minute Read/Black Memoirs Matter/Family/Identity/Justice/Literature/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Religion/Society/trauma
Main Street Madness by Mary McBeth
But I don’t say that, instead I will say that I’m going to build a Tiny House, and ditch the double-wide. That way they will be awed instead by my quirky ingenu...
Tea Bags by David Margolin
My mother used to save her used tea bags in a small glass cup. I don’t think that she ever used one twice. Having grown up during the Great Depression, the thou...
3 Minute Read/Aliens/Food/Identity/Immigrants/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/Love/Memoir/Memory/nonfiction/On Writing/On Memory/Storytelling/writing
Sourdough, Ancestors, and Other Recipes for Time Travel by Edvige Giunta
Memoir is about absence, emptiness; it’s about crossing divides–of time, space, language, and that ultimate divide between the living and the dead. It’s standin...
Dementia/Make Me Cry/5 Minute Read/ACEs/Alzheimer's/childhood sexual abuse/Depression/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Loss/Memoir/Mental Health/Rape Culture/Relationships/Society/trauma
My Aunt Who Changed Her Name by Cecilia Donohoe
To my friends, I tell the story as a joke. If Sarafina comes up in conversation, she — who bought me a beautiful pink tutu when I was nine and gave me beads and...
2 minute watch/Escape/Featured/Identity/Loss/Memoir/Mommy Dearest/Mothers and Daughters/PTSD/Society/trauma
Hypostasis by Amy Bailey
When Amy’s mother dies, there will be an autopsy. The report’s first paragraph will detail long black hairs protruding from her chin. It will be a commentary, a...
7 Minute Read/Featured/Girls & Women/Loss/men/nonfiction/Rape Culture/Relationships/#SAAM/Sexism/Society/Storytelling/Survival
Hon by Laurie Harriton
*Featured Art: A TEAR by Carolyn Schlam, Ink and Watercolor, 14″ x 11″, 2020 I am lying on the Murphy bed in Herb’s dark living room, having finall...
This Is Not Some Story About a Kid That Got Molested — Gary Smothers
with Featured artwork “Summer Shapes” by Norton Pease This, this is the memory that awoke in me one night while showering before bed. And let’s just...
The War is Over by Deborah Adelman
...at least when you are not lying awake at night in your bed in the living room, feeling the enormity of the world’s violence and wondering how your family mig...
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...
Trigger warning/3 Minute Read/Featured/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mental Health/Mental Illness/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Pushcart Prize Nominations/Science/Society/Suicide
Dead Weight by Claire O’Brien
I’ve been to thousands of death scenes. I knew what your family would say even before they found you. I know you’re the third suicide that this firefighter has ...
Your Greatest Fear by Sherri Wright
In the United States about six million people over 65 live with Alzheimer’s disease. You wonder how much your mother knew and if she suffered. Looking back, ...
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...
Trigger warning/Make Me Cry/7 Minute Read/ACEs/Addiction/Adversity/Escape/Featured/Family/Fathers/Literature/Loss/Memoir/Mental Illness/nonfiction/Relationships/Survival/trauma
Drowning by Natasha Williams
He was disheveled and smelled like cooked grease and cigarettes. It was an odor I associated with his being poor and hemmed in. There was so much about our life...
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...
Asian American Pacific Islander/7 Minute Read/Adversity/Childhood/Featured/Family/Food/Identity/Immigrants/Incarceration/Inspirational/Literature/Loss/nonfiction/Race Matters/Survival
Strawberry Mud by Shizue Seigel
My grandparents raised peas, lettuce, and cantaloupe on a 140-acre seaside ranch since 1915, but they could not buy the land, only lease it. Unlike European imm...