I had to wait until I was fifty-seven to learn that something quite profound happens when we are given the opportunity to care for our own dead, to bury them in a way that is personal and meaningful and feels like a true labor of love.
Read More
I answered no to all the key questions. No implants, no tattoos, no permanent makeup, no prosthetic knees, hips, or shoulders, no aneurysm clips. They told me it was okay to keep my underwire bra on, and the snap and zipper on my pants didn’t present a problem.
Read More
Not so long ago, the woman who was going to marry my brother called me out of the blue. It was close to the anniversary of the day her fiancé, my brother, dropped dead from nothing. Nothing we could explain then but maybe a genetic flaw, maybe his heart, or maybe an aneurism that killed our father when we were young. There was nothing to explain the suddenness. It was three months before the wedding. The invitations were freshly printed and waiting.
Read More
For the last decade, I have been preparing myself for the BIG death; the earth-shattering, life-changing, my world will never be the same, death. The type of event that hits so quickly, felt so deeply, your entire body goes into auto-drive. I’ve often wondered, in my own dramatic way, what would I do if I heard life-shattering news? Would I fall to my knees? Would I go into a state of shock and be unable to form words or thoughts. Or would I grow cold and distant from those I loved?
Read More
My name doesn’t matter. It’s not as if you’ll remember it anyway. My name could be Finn or Lotte. Kate, Marissa, Matthew, TJ, James, Victoria, Adam, Grace, Ashley, Claire. We are not mothers. We are not fathers. All we are are brothers and sisters. Siblings. We are the forgotten mourners and those left behind in the wake of a child dying from cancer. Our grief does not matter.
Read More
It was a good thing.
No, in fact, it was the best thing that could’ve happened.
I know that.
I was in an abusive relationship—eighteen years old—and the stick said positive.
Read More
I cut potatoes for my visit to Sunnybrook hospital. I’m making potato and leek soup. It is full of minerals and fits the food restriction list for those undergoing chemotherapy. I hope he likes it. I hope it brings nourishment and love.
Read More
My Facebook feed brings me an Orca carrying her dead baby, her tears spouting upwards, salting the already salty ocean. I am like that Orca, carrying my bundled grief, attached to my heaving chest, refusing to let go. The sudden loss of marriage, child, parent, even as I came back from the brink of death, has become my bundled grief. I clutch it, like that bundle of celebratory, baby shaped rice Japanese mothers handle with so much care, as it is supposed to hold the child’s future.
Read More
Every now and then, old memories appear when you least expect them.
Fastidious footsteps on the pavement leading to Painter Hall on the historic campus of Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi. You’re late. As you take the brick steps and walk towards the door, your mind falls back to a time when Santa Clause was a real man who slid down chimneys with tons of gifts, and life was centered around nursery rhymes, coloring sheets, and recess.
Read More
There are great concrete buttresses at my back holding up a lantern of light in the church behind me. I’m sitting on concrete steps, staring at one resilient weed working its way through a crack. Little survivor. I come here for the huge sky: tall river-meets-sea light, gulls wheeling and screaming, silvering the air, and the smell of all those far-off places I’ve never been to, swept briskly up here by the winds off the huge river. Close your eyes, you could be anywhere. It’s magic.
Read More
Is grief supposed to feel so much like shame? Mine does. Telling my story seems dangerous. It is something I hold close to my chest; I hesitate to reveal even the smallest details unless I have to. To speak of loss and pain out loud makes me vulnerable. It shakes a carefully crafted persona. It could mean people will think less of me, people will not like me. It could mean I get fired from my job, because I am someone who can’t cope. It could mean I will be left, once again, utterly, unbearably alone. That is too high a price to pay.
Read More
I’m an editor for a Christian press. I have two degrees in religion, both with a focus in biblical/textual studies. Most of what I edit is Bible based, and I see a lot of my role as helping my theology-focused authors do good biblical interpretation.
Read More
Yesterday 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.
Read More
He called me. Me. He picked up the phone and dialled my number. Not the favorite daughter who, admittedly, lives farther away, or the “son and hair” as he was known by his flowing locks in the ‘70s, who lives closer.
No. The bane of his life. The thorn in his side. Me.
Read More