Megan Vered

Megan Vered is an essayist whose first-person writing focuses on family, friendship, faith, and the fantasia of her youth. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Lake Effect, Silk Road Review, and The Coachella Review, among others. Megan holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her husband and West Highland White Terrier, Hamish, in Marin County, where she serves on the board of the UC Berkeley Library as well as Heyday Books and leads both local and international writing workshops. This piece, I am a Marionette, was originally published in Grief Dialogues: The Book.

Coping With Grief

I Am A Marionette

Yiddish was Mom’s first language. She was not even exposed to English until she went to kindergarten. Yiddish was also the secret language that my grandparents reverted to when they did not want us to understand them.

We caught on fast and learned to crack the code. We knew that gib a cook meant “take a look”; that gay gezunte hate meant “go in good health”; that tsorris was “suffering.”

May 6, 2020