mourning | mourning
Apr.06.2013
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion displays all of her formidable skills as a writer and perhaps demonstrates a way in which writing itself can be a critical survival technique in the face of great loss and tragedy.
The year in question lasted from the end of 2003 well into 2004....
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Mar.11.2013
While on vacation with a girlfriend, I suddenly realized I was still in a relationship with my dead husband.
You would think I would have realized this, since I am a psychiatrist and had been in psychotherapy for two years prior to his death in July 2012. Yet I denied it, even when I found...
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Apr.04.2012
Recently I was able to get in touch with a friend from my childhood in Cleveland. I hadn't seen her since we graduated from high school. I learned to my gladness that her mother was still alive and nearly eighty-eight, but that she was very ill. Not long after, she passed away. Looking at the on-...
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Jan.21.2012
Empire of Ghosts
I keep you all in a mason jar with some cotton, a maple stick or two, some pine needles; no need to poke air holes in the lid.
All the cats, tails bobbing like lovesick meat hooks -- all the horses, whickering Neil Diamond melodies.
No touching, just manipulation with...
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Dec.21.2011
My baby brother, committed suicide on December 4th, 2011. - He was 25.
I wanted to get that out in the first line because the more I start writing about the triails of the past few months I don't know if I will be able to get that part out. I won't go into deep detail about the whys and...
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Sep.28.2011
We are taught from a young age that death is to be respected — as though the simple act of drawing one’s last breath is capable of washing away a lifetime of misery and sin.Those who manage to escape the clutches of a dysfunctional family know this isn’t true, but even then the daggers of guilt...
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Sep.09.2011
As we prepare to mourn again the tragic loss of life that occurred on September 11, 2001, and the 10th anniversary, it is incumbent upon every American to acknowledge the diabolical events of that day that equates along with FDR's Pearl Harbor message of a “day that will live in infamy.” Some...
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Jul.11.2011
Canyon View with Ghost
Someone keeps asking if this is what nature smells like. The clouds fluff and flatten as the plaque at our feet etceteras: this absence of earth preens like a 1950's disaster movie, but with really cool special effects. When your ex-nurse calls again, I pretend to lose my...
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Jul.05.2011
Death Poem with Federally Funded Holiday
Butterfly wings sewn to the buttons on your sweater. The barbeque smoke comes between me and the trees. Here, people are ready for their meat.
Who has time for kisses? Why do I always picture you in a golden canoe, watching your hands, making no...
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May.02.2011
During the wedding reception, I stand in a corner of the room in my cinnamon-colored bridesmaid dress, remembering how everything used to be, trying to comprehend how much everything has changed.
I had met the bride, Madison, my freshman year in college. A group of us had decided to use the old...
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