Grief

  • A Season for Ghosts

    A Season for Ghosts

    I often think of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol when I think about ghosts this time of year. December has always felt like the most haunted month to me. Not because it is frightening, but because it brings the past closer. Dickens understood that. He tapped into something deeply human when he wrapped a ghost story

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  • Walking With My Father

    Walking With My Father

    I had a dream last night that stayed with me long after I opened my eyes. It felt real in that quiet way some dreams do. In the dream I was walking with my dad at Christmastime. We were at Northwest Plaza in St. Louis, going to see Santa, and I was maybe four years

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  • The Last Chorus

    The door to the bar opened and light flooded in. The sun was rising outside but we didn’t care. We sat at the bar, still half-dreaming from the night before. Roy was behind it, wiping glasses, humming along to the sound system. I can still see him smiling at something silly Anni had just said

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  • I woke up this morning missing my dad. The thought of not being able to talk to him leaves this sickening hole in my heart. The grief takes you by surprise and knocks the wind completely out of you. Something good happens and you want to tell him. Something bad happens and you want to

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  • To Outlive Them All

    Death itself has never been the thing that frightened me. What terrifies me is the thought of losing everyone I love before my own time comes. That fear has been stitched into me over the years, thread by thread, through loss after loss. When you are young, you believe there is time. You imagine decades

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