When the Parent Becomes the Child: And Then There Was One

I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a particular kind of loneliness. —Laurie Graham My mother is leaving me. Her mind allows her to tell me about my favorite stuffed animal when I was three, my Effalunt, but Read more

Kissing the Patriarch Goodbye

It’s been over six years now, since I last spoke to my father: mid-summer, July 15th, 2014. I was in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he was lying on a gurney at a funeral home — dead as a doornail. To hide the incisions of his autopsy, the back Read more

400 Cans to Lunch

I don’t whine about hunger the wayother kids do when they’re given an apple, or told to wait until dinner, or told to waitwhen they’re stomping their feet while mommy and daddy examine the Halloween candies for razor blades and cyanide:I fucking whine.  Everyday it’s deviled ham with mayonnaise—with mayonnaise, mayonnaise, mayonnaise—enough goddamn mayonnaise to make Read more