The Monthly Theme Essays are a collection of essays written each month on a predetermined theme. These essays are always published during the last week of the month. To submit a Monthly Theme Essay check out our upcoming themes.
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When Weezie came to pick me up for our road trip to the mountains, six months after her husband Emmanuel was diagnosed, she looked excited. But it felt forced, like a child who no longer believes in Santa but pretends to believe so they may feel the old tingle of anticipation. What I saw was grief.
Read MoreOn the day after Thanksgiving 2022, I dragged my husband to a thrift shop outside Boston to look for a book I'd donated nearly twenty years ago. It started as a Twitter dare the week before. I was chatting with some pals about a book an ex-boyfriend gave me when I was twenty and we were at the height of a love affair that lasted seven years. My ex died in February, and I was having a hard time talking about it; most people didn't seem to understand why I was so upset about the death of a guy I broke up with so long ago. The easiest thing to do, sometimes, was to play it for laughs; at least that way I got to talk about it a little, with strangers who didn't know me well. "Why don't you go look for it?" someone said. "You never know, and it'll be a great story if you find it."
Read MoreMy mother’s eyes registered my arrival, but without her dependable smile. The bones of her face were sharp and craggy, her nose slightly humped from a childhood fall, her eyes blue and deeply set. Tita, who cared for her, had dressed her in her brightest blouse and hung a necklace round her neck. Mom was crooked in her chair and not pretending, while a cheerful string of rainbow-colored letters on the mantle shouted happy birthday for her eighty-ninth and last.
Read MoreMy daughter’s fortieth birthday is soon, and I’m looking for something special for her. It’s a tradition in our family. At particular milestones, the mother gifts the celebrant with a special piece of jewelry, other “heirloom” from her own life. I’m looking for a piece of my history—something of me to stay with her as she moves toward all she’s becoming. When I turned forty, my mother surprised me by crocheting a lovely blue throw that I still can snuggle under on cold nights. I don’t have time to create something, so I sort through my jewelry box, looking for just the right thing.
Read MoreI’m seated in the passenger seat of my old gray Prius teaching Zahra how to drive. She is in the driver’s seat intently watching the traffic light, waiting for the moment it turns green. I sit quietly so I don’t disturb her concentration. She’s wearing a black blouse with long sleeves and black pants on this hot summer day; her headscarf is absent. I’ve known her long enough to know that she wears a headscarf only when she wants to. “It’s not for religion,” she’s told me before, stopping short of telling me why she sometimes wears it. I’m wearing a short skirt and a tank top in light colors. Despite our different appearances, I feel a strong emotional kinship with her.
Read More“Did she really say that?” I was shocked, yet I wasn’t. There was a strange quality to my awareness those days, like the water coming to shore and retreating again. I was listening to myself through insubstantial headphones, muted and tilted slightly.
My mama nodded. She kept tinkering about the kitchen, pressing the button on the coffee machine and side-stepping back to the sink. I watched her in silence for long moments, dangling my feet from the bar stool with the nervous energy that took hold of me while I was mulling over my grandmother’s statement.
Read MoreOn the day of my best friend’s funeral, I received a friendly text from a colleague asking how I was enjoying my summer. Not knowing I was in despair, I did not want to distress them. So, I replied with a number of clichéd nautical terms. I felt like a ship without an anchor. I was lost at sea, set adrift. This proximity to water, without the sight of land, creates disorientation and resignation. My early grief came with a strange apathy born from a newfound loneliness and struggle. Will power and the habit of duty kept me tethered to the deck. I hoped I was not at risk of falling overboard. I am not a strong swimmer.
Read MoreVinegar-soaked fish and chips in a London pub, our families escaping the summer heat in 2006. You, me, your brother, my sister, all of us in a dark wood booth beside a window. English bric-a-brac, the smell of Guinness. In the spring, we’d both graduated from the University of Oklahoma and turned twenty-two within months of each other, which meant we’d known each other half our lives.
Read MoreMerlin used to like to listen to music. He’d crawl up on the bed and sit next to me, while something played from my phone to try and calm my aching nerves, even though he couldn’t hear or see very well, with no teeth and no claws. I think in a way he could feel the vibration of the sounds through his body, like a purr resonating through my bones whenever he would sit on my chest to go to sleep. It’s like he knew I needed the comfort, like he knew I needed the consolation only a one-eyed cat could provide in a period of dark depression, bipolar mania, or skin-picking compulsion.
Read MoreTwenty years ago I was awakened in the middle of the night by a call from my father. My sister Shelley had been hit in a head-on vehicle collision by an elderly man who had driven the wrong way on the interstate for twenty miles. Shelley had been Christmas shopping in Springfield that night and was heading home at the time of the accident. Hazy, I asked my dad, “Did Shelley make it?” The most cavernous “no” I’ll ever hear in my life followed.
Read MoreI want to go back in time. Back to when you and I were friends. Thirty years ago, when we were neighbors living at home with our families.
My mum passed away that year. The same year we moved into the house next door to yours. You always said our crossing of paths was “meant to be.”
Read MoreI’d only told the baby daddy when I was sure. “So, you’re not getting rid of it then?” He’d said.
Keep mum until you've passed the first trimester. This is the gospel according to the matriarchy, and I’d followed it religiously. The latent fear is that miscarriage pursues you at your back like a winged chariot.
Read MoreIt’s been eight years since you left me. The same amount of years we’ve been together. Has it really been that long?
I still have your letter, but today, I think it’s only fair that I write this letter back to you. To bring up the things left unsaid between us. To ask all the questions I never got to ask.
Read MoreYesterday I just so happened to share a picture of my dad and me on Instagram. It's one of about six photos I have with him. This particular one was was taken on May 25, 1997 on the day of my First Communion. We sit in the front room of the house, the good room or Santa's room as it was called from time to time, because it was also the room where we kept the Christmas tree. My Dad loved Christmas, or so my Mom tells me.
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