My Mother, The Brisket, And The Rabbi: A Love Story
I am a pathological liar. I stand by my superior ability to fabricate the truth, to create a false narrative, to lie on command. And I would do it all again if I had to. When my Mother was approaching the final stage of her life, she was often inconsolable. Dementia has a way of […]
Ellie’s Goodbye
Ellie breathes heavily as I cradle her, her lovely green eyes closed. We’re on a bench at the back of the large, crowded waiting room of the animal hospital. Technicians stand at the front and call animals’ names, inviting people and their pets into the exam rooms. For routine exams or emergencies or…for the reason we’ve come. After years of medications and fighting the odds, Ellie let me know that she’s had enough…that it’s time. If only we were here for just an exam—the place where Ellie has been a patient since I adopted her sixteen years ago. She’d been rescued
Lightkeeper, Preface
Editor’s Note: At Grief Dialogues, we believe art helps us carry what grief leaves behind. Photographer and author Stacy Bass shows us how images and words can preserve love, memory, and light. Her journey from Speak, Memory to her forthcoming memoir Lightkeeper reminds us that even in loss, creativity can sustain us and connect us to one another. Read my interview with Stacy Bass here. —Elizabeth Coplan Preface I’m afraid I am beginning to forget. I always thought I had a great memory. I remember lots of things with little meaning. Like my childhood home phone number: 226-6634. And the number
Creative Grief: The Wind Phone Connection
If you are anything like me, then you look back at your life to see the patterns, and how certain choices propelled you forward or held you back. In surveying the landscape of my past, it is clear that the last six years have been my most difficult to date: I lost both of my parents, we survived a global pandemic, I had major surgery on my throat, my only child transitioned, got married, divorced, and moved away, I lost touch with my birth family, and my 26-year marriage ended in divorce after long-term betrayal. So, yeah, that is a lot
