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Uncle George lay on his back on the hospice bed looking his ninety-four years for the first time. His usual ruddy face was as pale as the bleached sheets nearly shrouding him.
My cousin had warned me, "Dad's unconscious. He won't recognize you."
I thought I was prepared.
Read Moreabecedarian twenty-six letters, each one a compact unit of communication, a twisted riddle, a maze of red tape from well-lit offices; the only means of containing my sorrow now that all I have left of my brother are memories and letters.
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 MoreOnce again grief knocks down my door, tosses the furniture, grabs my throat, and slams me up against the wall. Grief has no manners. It’s not polite, or thoughtful, or kind. Grief is a punch to the gut and then another. It doesn’t stop when you’ve had enough, when you cry uncle, when you tell it you did your best and to leave you the fuck alone. It’s like birth, noisy and painful and messy, no way out but through.
Read MoreI thought that when you left, it would get easier. The pain of yesterday still cuts through every bone—all the flesh that reminds me of my mortality, all the flesh that reminds me of you. All of my flesh and bone that belongs to you—that is you. They say there is no greater love than the love we receive from our grandmother. That never felt true to me until there was no more love to receive.
Read MoreMy mother’s family is buried in a little cemetery at the edge of Magnolia, Iowa, population 175. It’s about forty minutes north of Omaha. “Don’t blink or you’ll miss it,” my dad used to say. Mom’s parents lay there, encircled by generations of relatives. Most had worked the surrounding land, their farms scattered across the Missouri River Valley.
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 MoreTo prepare for a friend’s wake, you will need a good, sturdy, circling-the-wagon group of friends because, even if your friend has family, she will still need her friends. Over the years, she has gathered you up like so many buckeyes and strung you together. Now, you will need each other. Together, you must attend to the details, like where the body will be displayed. If the dying person wants to be placed in a casket, you can buy one or, if someone, for example, the spouse of the dying person is good with his hands, he can whip one up from some slabs of pine, then store it in the tool shed next to the lawnmower and kayaks and mountain bikes.
Read MoreIn 1994, in cold and damp London, in a Waterstones bookstore, the memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? perched on a paperback display. Three weeks after my father’s death from pancreatic cancer, I had gone to England to start my junior year in college studying abroad.
Read MoreFront Yard
The oak tree out front sprawls, and the driveway sleeps contentedly under a blanket of its yellow pollen as we park, leaving tire marks through the fallen powder. My dad sings along to Lynyrd Skynyrd as we pile out of the car. Dad shreds an air guitar, making my brother and I laugh while my mom rolls her eyes.
Read MoreThe story starts more than 4.6 billion years ago. Somewhere in the Local Group, the cluster of galaxies that the Milky Way lives in, a star died. It might not have been a massive star—maybe only five suns big. But it grew too big to support itself, and so it burned out. The outsides exploded, throwing dust and star matter into the universe—a supernova—and the core collapsed in on itself. The engine of its heart gave one last pump and ceased to exist. It left behind a dense neutron star, and a cloud of debris.
Read MoreI’m a mother. And yet, I’m not.
My dream, years in the making, has and yet hasn’t come true. And even if I could ignore this and live as if my life is the way I want it to be, there are daily reminders everywhere I go that women the world over keep getting my dream for themselves while I am still left grasping for it.
Read MoreYour hands are shaking. When you squint at the street sign, your vision blurs. You stop in front of a subway station, interrupting the current of pedestrians moving downstream into the underground. They divide around you with disgruntled murmurs. So many people—too many. You are biting your lip to keep your anxiety choked down. You tell yourself that instead of being caught in the swell of the subway, you will walk fifty-eight blocks and four avenues.
Read MoreI encountered pornography for the first time in sixth grade. The video, left up on my friend’s laptop, kissed my chin and invited me to observe. I wasn’t horrified. I didn’t mind that the actors were naked. I somehow expected it. But an eerie disquiet settled in my stomach, heavier each moment I waited for the woman to realize someone was watching her.
Read MoreI 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 MoreI 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 MoreNot 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 MoreFor 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 MoreMy 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 MoreIt 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.
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