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This essay is part of a series of journal entries written throughout my mother’s two-and-a-half-year journey with cancer. December 8, 2016 Snow fell the day my mother left Detroit. It was the first real snowfall of the season and it was light, fluffy and wispy, swirling through the air and dancing on the roads. You…
I was in the third grade when my grandfather died of brain cancer. I was a neon-scrunchie-wearing, freckle-faced kid who’d obliviously asked him what he thought of the Lisa Frank Valentines I was creating for my classmates only a week before his passing. He couldn’t answer, of course, his eyes yellowed and his body still,…
After my grandmother’s death last year, I found myself thinking of her daily. Every song on the radio about heartbreak suddenly put my grief into words. I found myself crying in the car on the way to and from work, when I had moments of solitude and wouldn’t have to explain my emotions to anyone….
Let me make this clear: Christine Shannon has no problem telling junkies to fuck off during the day, and then praying the rosary while watching The Tonight Show. A woman who taught me almost everything ladylike that I know, also taught me what it means to be the matriarch, the one with the power. She…
