Latest posts
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Elephants
The Blessing of the Elephants Like elephants, we gather in silence, Circling around the memory of those who passed before. I doesn’t matter if it isn’t our child, Our partner, our parent, our brother, What matters is it was someone’s. What matters is, it hurts. We pass the bones around lovingly one by one,…
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Joe’s Surgery
I’ve been trying to reach Joe for weeks, because I wanted to visit when he went in for surgery. He’d been talking for awhile about having his left foot amputated in order to potentially walk again (with a prosthetic) and leave the skilled nursing facility. Finally he called me yesterday, letting me know the surgery had…
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New Dad
I just overheard Justine talking to her friend: “I don’t want another dad.” “Why not?” “Because my brother would have to babysit me every single night.” “Why wouldn’t your new dad be here, Justine?” I called from the other room. “Because he’d always be on a date with you.” In…
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Memorial Craft Fair
It’s the time of year again for our holiday craft fair to raise money for the family’s expenses. This will most likely be the last of the Fundraisers, so we want to go big! There will be live music and all sorts of arty goods and gifts on hand, donated by our creative friends. Vernon…
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Leftover Love
The following passage is from a Grief Writing group’s assignment earlier this week. The prompt was a May Sarton poem about solitude and ‘clothing yourself in love.’ It took me a couple of days to write this one….but I was compelled to get it out. I’ve written it as if the reader is a newcomer to the story, so…
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On the Wane
When the memories come, I stop what I’m doing squinting my mind to see them clearly But even now, they are brief, waning like a once full moon, white against a pale morning sky. What I have loved I cannot hold. Like the tail of a waking dream, I try to grasp the last details…
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The Color of Memory
A blue grey green. The paint was mixed obsessively. Adding a little blue here, a little black there. You had to make the paint your own. Had to stamp it with your creative touch. I can see the color now. Don’t have a name for it though. A blue grey green. We put it on…
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Writing Group
This is day 7 of the writers’ group. 7 of 30. It’s turning out to be very intense, time consuming, mind consuming. There are 40 people signed up on the private Facebook page, but maybe half of them actually share their writing. It’s eye opening to read other’s raw thoughts about their pain of loss while trying to…
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Grief is a Ghost
Grief is a ghost. “I welcome you all,” she creaks from the rafters. “Orphans, Parents, Widows, Widowers, Sisters, Brothers, Friends.” We shudder at her breath, just beyond the surface when a rock star dies, we hear a friend has cancer, we read the news, imagining her as some long haired harpy with claws and a…
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Fragrance
I found two near-empty bottles of Vernon’s cologne on Maki’s dresser. I’d put them aside in the hall closet when I did a big clear out last spring, but somehow he found them and brought them into his den along with a lot of his dad’s clothes and shoes (which happen to fit him right now.)…