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...
Tag: loss
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...
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 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 ...
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, ...
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...
Going to Find by David Hensley
I was in the kind of love that puts a rock in your heart and stuffs your eyes with cotton, but you hold that rock and that cotton. Because that’s all you’ve got...
For Nugget By Ashley Swanson
I never knew you. The books still talked about you in terms of food: This week your baby is the size of a poppy seed. This week your baby is the size of a plum....
Redacted Relationship By Keith Hoerner
Redacted Relationship By Keith Hoerner
Letter to My Husband Who Died Suddenly by Felice Aull
I want to tell you about your death because I feel some guilt about the final events of that night. I have repressed the guilt in order to keep living but I nee...
One Year After the Fire by Kevin Taylor
I’d talked with firefighters about extension — how a fire spreads — all the while constructing, mentally rehearsing and refining an elaborate plan for my own de...
Addicted to Love: 38 Special By Tanner Ballengee
* Featured Artwork: By Michelle Nguyen Addicted to Love: 38 Special By Tanner Ballengee “I woke up this morning with a piece of past caught in my throat, ...
Full Catastrophe By Lauren Crux
My mother died of Alzheimer's disease. The full catastrophe. She became a turnip––blind, deaf, unable to speak. Her gorgeous dark, thick, red hair––stringy and ...