Occupation
Occupation

Rose, I saw a picture of you today. The first one, I think, I’ve ever seen. Your face was kind, like my Gran’s. For some reason this surprised me. But you must have been kind. Your daughter is kindness personified. The photo was sent by Amanda, your granddaughter, my aunt. I’d fired off an email this morning, and by lunchtime there you were, sitting in my downloads. I tried to zoom in on your face, but you pixelated on my phone screen. You were sixty-three, sitting in the garden with Great-Grandpa on Amanda’s eighth birthday. My mother, a chubby toddler, sits on Great-Grandpa’s lap. Sixty-three is the age my parents are now, but you look much older than them. Maybe it’s your clothes, your hairstyle, or the black and white camera. Maybe it’s the war, the guilt and grief that you carried away from it.

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Our Grandmother's StoriesJulia Nusbaumwar, childloss Comment
The Real Erica Kane
The Real Erica Kane

Daytime soap operas held all the answers.

In fifth grade, my friend Connie introduced me to daytime soap operas so I could learn about things of which I had no firsthand knowledge, things that Connie already understood—love triangles, how to successfully ruin the social and business reputations of others, dead people coming back to life as their previously unknown evil twin.

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Our Grandmother's StoriesGuest Usergrandmother, abortion, father, jewish womenComment
The Dinosaurs of Parkchester Public Library
The Dinosaurs of Parkchester Public Library

I didn’t learn to read until I was eight years old, a full month into second grade. It’s not something that entirely made sense, since I had learned how to spell simple words in the previous year, and I could speak English with the same ease as Spanish since the end of kindergarten. Reading, however, was something that had slipped past until the day my teacher took me aside, bewildered by my scattershot collection of knowledge.

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Our Grandmother's StoriesGuest Usergrandmother, reading, mother, childhoodComment
Space
Space

It’s hard to disappear in this digitally-connected world. Have you ever Googled yourself? I have. It’s amazing how much someone can find out about me in just the ‘top hits’ when I put my name in. In all, close to 25 relevant entries appear, and I’m not remotely famous. I think most of my friends can say the same, yet when I tried to find Ben Krieger on the internet, I came up empty.

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Missed ConnectionsJulia Nusbaumfriendship, friends, missed connections, womens storiesComment
Split
Split

I met Dennis when he was in high school, I was in college, and we were both teaching English at a religious summer camp in Croatia. He came with a group from Oklahoma, including the team leadership. I signed up with a friend from college. We had a few days of training in Chicago before flying. The all-White male leadership set the tone for us, as we sat in a stuffy hotel meeting room, on the third floor, with closed windows on a windy day. There they asked us to write what we thought our lives would have been like if we had not found Christianity. Was it a trick question?

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Missed ConnectionsGuest Userreligion, missed connections, relationshipsComment
Letter
Letter

Once, I read a letter I wrote to you out loud in a slam poetry open mic. I wasn’t intending on speaking that day but now that I look back, I probably saw myself in the poets, songwriters, and artists who were barely older than me but just as weary: They’ve spent half their young lives chasing love or at least the thrill of writing about it, and you know me, you’ve always known me. Who am I to deny myself a group like this one?

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Missed ConnectionsGuest Usermissed connections, love letter, love, relationshipsComment
Extraordinary Ordinary
Extraordinary Ordinary

I have been on many, many dates, including an abundance of first and only dates. I thought I had experienced most first date repertoires—coffee dates and dinner dates, exciting dates and boring dates, dates to the theater and dates to the comedy club, dates that led to relationships and dates that came to screeching halts midway. I’d been on first dates with sixty dollar steaks and first dates with six dollar burgers. I’d been on first dates with lawyers and professors and police officers and firefighters. I’d even been on first dates with married people, unbeknownst to me, of course.

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First Date StoriesGuest Usermy first date, love, nature, relationships Comments
“Hang Out”
“Hang Out”

I moved to a new city where I knew no one in the fall of 2016. I was twenty-three at the time and had graduated college the year before. Now I was settling in this new place with a new, real adult job. Like many people in many places, I turned to dating apps for entertainment. To make friends, to find dates, to explore the new city. Sometimes it was for a physical connection, but sometimes that was just a bonus if it happened at all. It was more about creating moments of connection, even if they were brief.

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First Date StoriesGuest Usermy first date, relationships, friendship Comment
Keep a Light On
Keep a Light On

Merlin 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.

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GriefGuest Usercats, pets, grief, lossComment
Love's Pressure Valve
Love's Pressure Valve

Once 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.

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GriefJulia Nusbaumgrief, death of a parent, death of a friend, death of a pet, dogs Comments
Where Do All the Poppies Go?
Where Do All the Poppies Go?

I 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.

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GriefGuest Usergrief, grandmother, granddaughterComment
Plots
Plots

My 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.

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GriefJulia Nusbaumgrief, death postive, death of a parent, death of a friendComment
Dead Sister Club
Dead Sister Club

Twenty 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.

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GriefGuest Usergrief, sister, love, loss Comment
How to Host a New-Age-y Wake
How to Host a New-Age-y Wake

To 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.

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GriefJulia Nusbaumgrief, friendship, death of a friend, love letterComment
Even Home
Even Home

Front 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.

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GriefJulia Nusbaumcommunity, grief, childhood, addictionComment