Drinking*
Sean MurphyI still have hangovers, thank God. Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the…
Solitude*
Anyone who has lost a parent (or worse, a child) can understand that when this happens it becomes an indelible line of demarcation: your life before and your life after.…
Written and Unread*
A vision: I am reading words written by a dead person. Nothing unusual about this; it’s practically the story of my life. In this case, however, the person who was…
The Problem with the Homeless Problem*
Who was he? I think the same question each time I see him (every day: the same man in the same spot, holding the same sign that tells everyone who…
Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone*
L’amour de l’art fait perdre l’amour vrai. I did not say that. Although that is the sort of thing I might say, since I am the sort who feels obliged…
Whispered Words*
How long will it take? I did not ask, because I wanted to make every second count. It would be over quickly enough; it was already happening entirely too soon.…
Pythagoras*
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but my grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the…
Deus ex machina*
Was that as bad for you as it was for me? That's the question I did not ask when Father _____ left our house. On to his next appointment; all in a…
Fairy Tales and Feeding Tubes*
The brief experiment with the feeding tube was sufficiently impractical and unsavory that it seemed a small, if conflicted victory when we agreed to discard the apparatus. “So just call…
When Words Fail*
It will be okay. This is what parents are obliged to tell frightened children and what some children must one day resort to telling their parents. It will be okay,…