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.

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 Sanders6 years ago in Families
The Overthinking Soldier
“4-0-0-9”, “4-0-0-9” “Oh, that’s me”, Briana said as she snaps into a range walk into the distant room. “Verify your Last name, date of birth and last 4” Said the Military medic. “Usufruilau, July 29, 1990, 4-0-0-9.”
By Ashanti Brown6 years ago in Families
A Million Breaths from There To Here
When Claire was closing her retail store, there was still enough stuff left to fill four ten-foot by twenty-foot storage units. Two were filled with office equipment and supplies, and two were filled with display and merchandising items. It was all that remained of a home furnishings and interior design store where twenty-three vignettes had graced a luxurious showroom. Here one found ideas for creating living spaces the likes of which could be found among the pages of notable magazines, such as Better Homes and Gardens and Southern Living. After a two-month liquidation sale, Claire shipped the saleable furniture and accessories off to a wholesaler in New England and began the tedious task of packing up the leftovers and hauling it all off to these four storage units.
By Regina Kristine Leigh6 years ago in Families
Appreciation
“All right, that's it for today, guys. Big test on Probability Monday. Hope you’ve all started studying!” Nearly everyone in my Algebra 2 class groaned. Then, one by one, the face-filled boxes began blinking out of existence. Some murmured goodbyes before vanishing, but most simply disappeared. At this point, (nearly a year into remote learning) a wordless blip was all I’d come to expect, and I didn’t take it personally. It had been a tough year for everyone.
By James Smith6 years ago in Families
Mississippi Mirage
It was fall of nineteen ninety-five. I had just landed at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport around four-thirty on the evening of September the twentieth. I had flown in from JFK to visit my older sister, Lauren, who was getting the weekend off from her duties. We hadn’t seen each other since last year when we were both home for Christmas.
By Xan Brooks 6 years ago in Families
Attic Book
When you lose a parent, you know this day will come. And for me, this incoming task felt like pressing hard on a scar that’s barely healed. Yet, I have daydreamed about this, excitedly thinking about what I might find. Everything sitting up there, at one point, held such meaning. The child in me loved some of those items so dearly, and to explore them would be exciting. There’s also a part of me that feels the finality that comes along with this; dad’s moving, she’s gone, and it all hurts. It’s harder to look at these nostalgic things because of the weight they hold, the pain and memories that will arise. I dreaded this and also fantasized about it. I could hold both, I think.
By Jara Nachbar6 years ago in Families
That Dark Fellow in the Ground
The black candy-lacquered hearse pulled up real slow to a bronze-donned cemetery gate about 10 feet high - only 16 feet higher than the maggots making way for Christophe LeBlanc’s soon-to-be-interred body. Lydia, with her French cut and large bosoms, turned as she always did to light her too-skinny cigarette. She was dressed like a widow and acted the part all too well. Sebastian sported a slim black suit, his shirt dismissed of its top fasten and his person set off with just enough jewelry to dissuade the attention of the higher sex. He was a notable balance of lamial comportment and masculine disinterest. He had a small scar just above his right eye where he had caught the wrong end of a poker bet in his youth. He pursed his lips and put his hand gingerly on Lydia’s thigh.
By Casia6 years ago in Families
Shadows of the Past
‘I’ll give you $20 000 if you come to visit me. Travel expenses on top of that.’ Clara was pacing the shabby apartment in downtown Detroit. She looked at the pile of laundry, at dirty dishes, and sighed. She hadn’t had the mind for household chores recently. How have I even ended up here? This isn’t me.
By Margot Zwiefka6 years ago in Families
My Mother's Diary
R.J. came home from work early with intentions of taking his wife Valarie out on the town. She was in the eighth month of a high-risk pregnancy. Normally, R.J. would come home, cook dinner for her and watch a movie. For the past month, she had only left the house for doctor visits. But today was her day.
By Armien Purcell6 years ago in Families
To Turn A New Page
Twenty-three years. Twenty-three years of marriage that miraculously balanced a collection of weekly grocery shopping, years of losing the remote and full-on yelling matches which ended only once one of them took some “time for themselves” in the spare bedroom. Twenty-three years of balancing 3 children, a house mortgage that doomed like a dark cloud, pot roast dinners with relatives and never forget the one pet rabbit both she and her husband begrudgingly agreed to gift the boys. This was the backdrop of Janet’s life and now it felt like such a distant memory.
By Irene 6 years ago in Families
The Ungiven Gift
I had looked for ages for the perfect gift for my mom. While she had embraced this new world of technology challenges, it was always easier and more convenient for her to utilize her note taking staple of pen and paper. Many times, I watched her struggle to remember where she had written things down or what she had written them on. My biggest fear was that something important was going to escape her in the madness of her discontiguous paper jungle. So, when I found the Moleskine Cahier Journal, I just knew I had found the mechanism to save her sanity and possibly something greater depending upon the magnitude of whatever it was she had forgotten or written down and misplaced.
By Bryan Johnson6 years ago in Families
THINGS LEFT UNSAID
She died today. And yet, so did I. Well a tiny part of me at least. I had rarely allowed myself to be close to anyone, anyone except her. And now, she was gone. My grandmother was the last person who had ever shown me a stitch of compassion. I am not sure if one would call it “love” because I am not quite sure what that word means. Oh yes I had parents (until today that is what I had referred to them as). The quaint colloquialism we refer to as “mom and dad”. But no love was lost between them and I when we halted all forms of communication five years ago. Because, you see, there had never been any love to begin with. Now today sitting in this lawyers office, with them on the other side of the room, listening to my grandmothers will read aloud, like some secret that she kept to be divulged quietly amongst us with her removed to a posthumous state. I cannot get my mind to focus on the attorney’s words, I am so struck with grief I can only focus on the nameplate on his mahogany wooden desk. I wonder what does esquire really mean in the context of legalities. Why had the forefathers chosen to use that as the identifier? “Ms. Abernathy, are you listening?” The attorney beckons me back from my mental wanderings. “…Yes?” I reply, my questioning tone is twofold; I am asking if he speaks to me and for myself if I am actually listening. He clears his throat and continues, “…Your grandmother has left you her estate, its not much, some property in Tennessee as well as the sum of $20,000. She has left this for you as well.” The attorney slides a little black notebook across that great mahogany desk towards me. Had that been there the whole time, I wonder to myself? My quandary does not last long, my thoughts quickly interrupted by the groans and growls of my parents who are just now processing that they had been left with nothing. How fitting that the people who, in my life, gave nothing (no affection, no compassion, no attention, no cares) to me, had now been given just that in return. “That concludes the reading of this will. I thank you all for coming today, I ask that you all leave quietly at this time. I am sorry for you loss” The attorney flatly states. My parents said not a word more, as they exited the attorney’s office, and yet the looks of anger and disappointment told its own sordid tale. Perhaps they understood the gravity of the situation that the daughter who that had never spared, had been given all she ever needed from the cold hand of a dead woman. I walked out of the office with a check for $20,000, the deed to a property in Tennessee that I had never heard of let alone seen, and a little black book. Bewildered, I climbed into my beat-up late 70’s model pick-up truck and sat. As if frozen in that moment I couldn’t feel anything, no joy could come from my newly found gains because the anguish of not having her with me anymore usurped that feeling. I looked at this book, clutched tightly in my hand now, cracked black leather with its odiferous hint of the mildew of age and poor storage. The pages yellowed with time and spine cracked from near over use. I willed myself to open it ever so delicately as to not disturb the front cover that seemed to almost want to fall off. On the first page, written in the splendor of my grandmothers’ exquisite penmanship was the phrase “What’s done in the dark comes out in the light”. A cliché that she had said on many occasions that meant little to me in this moment but would soon reveal itself to be truer than I could ever imagine. I sat there for a few moments, watching my parents lumber sullenly to their new luxury car. Such anguish over what to them would be a measly sum, but to me is more than I had ever had in three months. I was a bar maid, I say was because last week I had been fired for getting into an altercation with a patron. He was a regular who came in every weekend to hit on the staff and let his hands roam our bodies unsolicited and make inappropriate jokes that everyone laughed at begrudgingly. He was a big deal in our small town, most of the people that he believed where laughing with him really were laughing at him. Last week he had his eyes set on me and allowed his hands to roam to freely. Apparently big deal men don’t take to kindly to being sucker punched by woman. And now here I was a thousand-heir with a check that could set me up for a decent start and all I could do was weep. I missed her, I missed her more than this money could ever mean to me. I turned the page in the tattered little black book and there was an address written in the middle of it 1117 Broken Ridge Way, Brookview Tennessee. I had never heard any of my family talk about a place in Tennessee. I hurriedly opened the envelope with the deed inside. It was the same address scribed on both pages. At that moment my parents flew by in their black beamer, my “mother” flipping the bird at me and scowling as they made their angry way out of the parking lot. I new right then that I would never see them again. I drove back to my apartment in silence, parked my truck and meandered solemnly up the steps. Eyeing the door to my place I saw a man in a suit standing at my door, as if he knew I was going to be there soon. I had an uneasy feeling about him, and went back to my truck to grab my taser (whom I called Betsy) from under my seat. I felt as though having a little extra piece of mind might be good right then. I made my way back to the staircase and as my foot hit the first step, the man said loudly “Ms. Abernathy?”. I looked him over, Betsy firmly in my side holster unlatched and ever ready. “Who wants to know?” I barked back, sounding not as intimidating as I had hoped. “Sorry to bother you ma’am, I am looking for Ms Abernathy. My name is Reginald Rogers and I worked for her grandmother, the late Madeline Abernathy”. My mind was racing, who was this man? How did she even know him? And better yet, how did he know her first name? My grandmother never, and I mean NEVER used her given name. Everyone called her Bea, short for Beatrice, her middle name. I looked suspiciously at him tickling Betsy with my first two right hand fingers. “I have proof if you would like” Reginald Rogers stated. He held a cell phone and proceeded to push play on a video clip with a paused image of my grandmother. The recording played “My little HB, I know you will be hurting right now. I haven’t left you I am always here so be strong. The man who is showing you this video is named Reginald Rogers and he has worked for me for many years. Please listen to what Rogers has to say HB, he will help you greatly and he will be working for you now. I love you my little honey badger don’t ever forget that!” I stood there, mouth agape, mesmerized by the shear astonishment of all that was transpiring. “Ms. Abernathy?” Rogers question again snapping me back into the reality of the moment. “ Ma’am, per your grandmothers instruction I now work for you, I would ask that you pack your things and come with me immediately. We don’t have much time.” I moved then, as if in a trance, relinquishing my hold on Betsy and taking out my keys, then opening my apartment door. Still levitating in thought through the door and into the living room. I just stood there, motionless staring at my dining room table. “Ms. Abernathy we must get moving”. Rogers interrupted my lack of thought. “Yeah, sorry I…” I replied trailing off. I found my speed and grabbed my hiking pack and began throwing some clothes in; I was still enchanted as I moved around my apartment gathering a few odd and ends. To be frank, I didn’t have much to begin with so it wasn’t very difficult. Lastly I reached down into the bottom of my sock drawer and grabbed my metal box of valuables. We made our way to down the steps of my apartment and I started off towards my truck when Rogers interrupted me mid stride “This way if you will” he said. Rogers ushered me to a black SUV with opaque tinted windows. “But what about my truck?” I asked. “I will have it delivered.” He said thrusting his right hand, opened palmed at me. I knew that was the universal signaling for “give me your keys”… and I complied. Rogers took my bag and opened the rear passenger door for me. I had never been driven anywhere let alone in such a nice vehicle. I hesitated for a split second, peering in (not to closely) to see if anyone was waiting for me there. There wasn’t. I slid into the back seat and sat there, staring off into space as Rogers walked around to the trunk and put my bag in. As we pulled away from my apartment building I could not help but be mystified by all that had transpired thus far, my grandmother had a secret it seemed, a big one. Why had she not thought to tell me that all this would happen? I wondered if my parents knew anything? “Your grandmother was a very private person. She did not wish for you to know anything about this part of her life until the time was right” Rogers stated as if he heard my thoughts. “Do my parents know?” I blurted back almost in fear. “No, ma’am they do not. Your grandmother intentionally kept this part of her life from them because she knew what kind of people they really are.” He replied. That statement didn’t require any follow-up questions; I also, unfortunately, know what kind of people they are. I leaned forward in an attempt to quietly question Rogers “Where are we going?” I asked. “Tennessee ma’am” Rogers replied. His answer was so short I felt as though any further requests for answers would be intrusive. I decided instead to read the little black book that was now burning a hole in the back pocket of my jeans. I took it out with a new found nature of inquisitiveness, now I had to read it. I turned past the address page now and there was an old black and white photo of my grandmother in all of her youthful glory and some man I had never seen before. She wore a soft looking button down dress, her hair pulled up in a 1940’s wrapped quaff. The man wore a long sleeved dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark colored freshly pressed trousers. They were both barefoot in a field of flowers, with a river or something flowing beside them. Both smiling and bright eyed, his arm wrapped tightly around my grandmothers’ petite waist and her arm over his shoulder. They looked as though they had been dancing and stopped to take a photo. I turned the photo over and there was the phrase Broken Ridge Ranch- Gene & Madi 1942 penned in my grandmothers hand. Who was Gene, is He the reason I am now going to Tennessee?
By GiGi 6 years ago in Families