grief
Losing a family member is one of the most traumatic life events; Families must support one another to endure the five stages of grief and get through it together.
No Chance to Know
Sounds come back to me first. My ears ring. The muted voices of a not-so-distant conversation. An incessant beeping. The soft pumping of machinery. Then I feel pain like the drip-drip-drip of a leaky faucet. A dull throb in my head and at the base of neck. Pain resulting from an attempt to lift my left arm again, el dolor causing my weighted eyelids to flutter. Black spots in my vision as my eyes adjust to brightness. I blink hoping to disperse the lingering disorientation. Sterile walls and innocuous framed artwork. A hospital.
By Lucero King5 years ago in Families
First Entry
Sunday 2/28/21 – First Entry I was ten when I found my great grandmother’s journal, stowed away in an old dusty trunk located upstairs in my childhood home. The tattered cover smelled of must and old perfume, and the pages were dog eared and ink smeared, showing clear signs of her vulnerability. The pages had cataloged the life and journey of a woman I have only known through grainy, discolored photographs. Its fragile binding creaked as I became so engrossed in reading about my tangible heritage. A sense of connection flooded over me as I peered into my lineage in a way that I had never experienced. You see, my family members are all closed books, so communication and deep conversations have only ever lived in my mind. I guess being introspective is more than a choice, it is a genetic trait for my family.
By Ashlyn Hendrix5 years ago in Families
The Whole In The Wall
No one liked going to Grandpa's house, only Joe. We would all regrettably clamber into the station wagon and complain until we got there. The drive was just long enough to make you need to use his one tiny bathroom with a line that was basically a ball game at the end of the 6th. His house was old, and it stunk of rotting wood, plaster and mud. But more than that, death. The same smell your family cat let off two days before they passed; or the way grandma smelt before the worst day. The day grandpa gave up. He was never the same. She was his fire, without her he was just a fly circling a cow pie; and with her; he filled the room with light.
By Ryan Birchall5 years ago in Families
Everything Good
In my memories of this place, we were always driving. It seemed we were always far from everything, and that part still holds true. Driving out here as fast as I could made it clear it really is the corner of nowhere and around where Jesus lost his sandals. In my nostalgic mind it’s a view from the jump seat of a pistachio green seventy- something Ford, rough Navajo bench seat chafing my summertime bare legs as my feet dangled halfway to the floorboard. But it was the shifter, watching my grandfather move the car through its gears in a seemingly endless array of movements coordinated between clutch, pedals, and gearshift. Even the alien mechanism itself impressed me, tall and strong right out of the floor, making self important sounds and causing the truck to jump quickly into gear or come to a shuddering stop. It made my grandfather chuckle, but for a child of the automatic car generation, that manual transmission truck was downright magic.
By love.minus.limits5 years ago in Families
The book, the rock and the smile
I followed the river, lost in my thoughts, concentrating on holding back tears in case they flooded the valley. I never thought I’d see mum smile again after dad went away. It took a long time and a little miracle, but it was worth the wait. It all started when I stumbled across a secret clearing with a tiny cabin down the river past the old railway bridge, beyond the rock cliffs stretching up above the treetops towards the clouds, and halfway to the damn wall. I discovered it the week after dad left – on my ninth birthday.
By Andy Summons5 years ago in Families
Legacy
Desiree couldn’t remember Oba’s hands anymore. It’d been too long since she held them, and the memory of their shape and weight was beginning to fade from her mind. In an effort to combat the emptiness that washed over her, she grasped her right hand and cradled it gently. Closing her eyes to savor the touch, she thought—these are Oba’s hands, and she uttered the words beneath the flickering streetlight near Ray’s Café.
By Amanda Padró5 years ago in Families
The gift
I wasn't ever one for new-years resolutions. Personally, I think if you have to wait until the new year to make a resolution, you're unlikely to stick to it. Unfortunately, my unique way of thinking isn't catered to as they don't make page a day diaries that begin on the twenty-eleventh of some month or other. And, being a living breathing mess, I knew I would need the rigid structure of a lined, ruled and dated diary in which to encourage me to stick to my perhaps unrealistic but well intended pledge to write a poem a day. Fate, (or a well written google search), led me to a little black book, my now beloved moleskine, and so it began.
By Kiva Oulothrix5 years ago in Families
The Diary
The Diary I sat on the subway. Another unassuming traveler. My coat tucked neatly over my arm. Across from me I noticed a young woman. Her long dark hair barely restrained by the barrette she wore. The curls a riot behind her in dark tangles. She looked sad, as she smiled at everyone who passed. Her smile while beautiful never reached her eyes.
By Katya Valencia5 years ago in Families
Molly, Get Your Wings!
“Robinson, Friedman and Sacks, how may I direct your call?” Molly hangs up as soon as those words pierce her eardrums. A law firm? She doesn’t understand what’s happening and is too afraid to find out. She’s so traumatized from creditors and debt collectors pounding her voicemail, that calling a law firm of all places is triggering. What a difference a year makes.
By Felis Stella5 years ago in Families
Into the blue
I hate the hospital. I'm sick of those buildings. From all of them, the one I hate the most is the internist clinic in my city. They shoved together the infective ward, hematology, internist department, psychiatry and neurology. Why do I hate it, this intern clinic? Reasons are very personal and I shall write about it.
By Jadranka Trailovic5 years ago in Families
What Lasts
Her handwriting was all over her house--hundreds of words handwritten on small pieces of paper taped over the garbage disposal, in the refrigerator, in the utility closet, in the drawers on top of piles of bank statements and decades of filed taxes and official documents. Charlotte’s grandmother, Yuma, who lived alone in the same house for nearly 50 years, wrote such practical reminders to herself: “garbage disposal NOT working--DO NOT use” over the sink, or “unplug refrigerator before changing light bulb” on the inside of the refrigerator door. In the cupboard above the stove, Yuma had organized rows of empty jars and bottles that said “sterilized” with different years written on each container, all of them 20 years old and at varying stages of collecting dust. These notes were meticulously cut from pages of Yuma’s black moleskine notebooks--12 in total, always the exact same color and size--that she kept in her bedroom. In these notebooks, Yuma also systematically chronicled how certain foods affected her blood sugar, which was stubbornly high but somehow managed to stay stable in the “pre-diabetic” zone for the last three decades of her life. She would write a food, and on the same line write “YES” or “NO.” “Chocolate donut…..NO.” “Sweet and sour chicken….NO.” “Carrot cake….NO.” These notebooks catalogued years of her dietary habits, most representing rejections that did not maintain the balance of her blood glucose, and yet she persisted in documenting each food, the occasional “YES” providing just enough reassurance to keep documenting. “Oatmeal...YES.”
By Carly Sanders5 years ago in Families
