At The Grocery Store Alone, I Think About Becoming A Dead Girl

I think about becoming a dead girl, not because I want to be one, but because of how possible it is for me, out in public, to become one. I’ve read the news, the stories, watched the true crime documentaries and listened to the podcasts. In Youtube videos, a beautiful woman applies makeup while detailing another’s gruesome murder. I walk through the aisles of the store, filling my cart and avoiding eye contact with men I don’t know, wondering how many of their mouths have watered at the thought of wringing my neck.

Diya MehtaJanuary 17, 2024Death, sexual violence, violenceComment

Feminist Amnesia

Writing a memoir is being in the diaristic present. I’m here but writing about then—a then I have not documented, a then that is lost, a then I re-create with each stroke of a word, as if I’m a time traveler denied access to my past.

True StoriesGuest UserNovember 11, 2021love, grief, LGBTQIA, DeathComment

Your Mother's Back

When we took her to the toilet for the fifth time that day, as I held her up, and you pulled down the necessary, I noticed her back. She wanted to take her clothes off, and we didn’t have the will or strength to resist this time. She stood there, swaying half-dressed, and briefly one-legged like a disheveled flamingo. I saw how her freckles, the texture and colour of her skin exactly like yours.

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 16, 2021grief, mother daughter, cancer, Death Comment

In the Waiting Room

Heavy, viscous steps. One hundred of them from the car door to the wheelchair rack. Another thirty-seven past the receptionist and into the lobby. Three more, and then your toe taps against the elevator railing, careful not to fall.

True StoriesGuest UserAugust 31, 2021cancer, Death, grief Comment

Jan

I had never been to a funeral. I never went to a wake, never stood by an open grave as a priest read scripture. All I knew of the ritual of mourning was what I had seen in movies. Sometimes I idly entertained the notion of someone I knew dying, just to imagine what the funeral would be like. How would I act?

True StoriesGuest UserJuly 8, 2021Death, immigration, familyComment

I Miss You All the Time

My mother passed away when I was eight years old, and for some time after that, I journaled to cope with difficult feelings. She wrote in beautiful notebooks while she was sick. I suppose I was trying to find a connection. I shared thoughts and feelings about a variety of topics: what pony I was going to ride that week in my horseback riding lessons, stories about my dolls’ lives, and random emotions.

True StoriesGuest UserJuly 7, 2021grief, mother daughter, DeathComment

Death and All His Friends

When we were young, my cousin and I seized any opportunity we had to toss a ball around. It was the nineties, before our obsession with internet games or online chat rooms. He was full of energy, never able to sit still.

True StoriesGuest UserJune 17, 2021COVID-19, Death, quarantineComment

Dark Chocolate

The death of Dianne, my ex-husband’s mother, opened a wound. The service was in California. I wasn’t invited. I didn’t ask if I could be there. Instead, I agonized over whether my daughter should go. She was in the middle of her college semester and travelling to India in a week. My ex-husband and I argued, he bought tickets without consulting me, and I worried it was too stressful for her to make both trips.

True StoriesGuest UserJune 2, 2021Death, Familiy, mother daughter Comments

Goodbye, Daisy

May 27, 2020

“You need to understand, if something happens, if the worst happens, we cannot let you inside,” Dr. Waters says through her mask, looking up into my face. Her eyes are beautifully made up, achieving a doe-eye effect. I wonder, momentarily, if she is in love with someone in her office. Her gloved hand reaches towards my dog. “With COVID, no one but staff is allowed inside the clinic.”

True StoriesGuest UserMarch 11, 2021COVID-19, dog, Death Comment

Tangles

In the 1980s, I kept a blank cassette inside the tape deck of my radio, so if a song I loved came on, I could run over and simultaneously hit the “record” and “play” buttons, and add that song to the mix tape developing in its boom-box womb. The beginnings of the songs are cut off, and the DJ often started speaking before the fade-out was complete. But my collection of homemade tapes was priceless to me. And I thought I would be able to listen to them forever.

True StoriesGuest UserJanuary 14, 2021Death, music, family Comments

The Give Back Project

Suddenly desperate to push beyond yourself, you commit to give back in some way in-between all the blood donations. A catalyst to thrust you from your daily grind.

True StoriesGuest UserSeptember 9, 2020suicide, life and death, Death, friendship, FriendsComment

Shore of Sky

The Sunday after Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel called me to say that, by law, they could not keep her ashes any longer, I marched into parish office of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and demanded of the receptionist, “How does one become Catholic?” I was directed to a Filipino woman, a parishioner-catechist, who smirked at me with detached affection, just like my mother used to. She told me her name was Grace, to which I replied, “well, that’s a good sign.”

True StoriesJulia NusbaumJuly 15, 2020religion, heritage, Death, mother, Growing upComment

Instructions Upon My Death

I would hope you’re reading this with tears streaming down your face, but I doubt it. Our relationship has not always been an easy one, volatile at times, distant at others. But never let it be said I didn’t love you. Very much. I don’t know how you feel about me. We don’t talk about such things, apparently. But now I’m about to die and there are some things you should know.

True StoriesJulia NusbaumSeptember 4, 2019Death, Grief, Familiy, forgiveness Comment

Personal Essays

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