Your pain is in my DNA,
Father,
As real as the shrapnel
Still in your legs
Decades later
Grief Archive
- Sub-Categories
- No categories
09 Jun 2015
Ooh-Rah
23 Dec 2014
My Experience with Medical Marijuana as a Psychiatric Medication and Harm Reduction Strategy
Trigger Warnings: suicidal ideation, grief, alcoholism, drug use.
When I first came to medical marijuana, I was desperate. Fighting Schizoaffective Disorder, alcoholism, PTSD, the recent death of my wife, chronic anxiety, and newly recovered childhood abuse memories, all I wanted was to be put out of my misery. I told my therapist, “When an animal is broken, you either shoot it or put it out to pasture comfortably, I’ll take either one.”
07 May 2013
My Experience with Detox and Outpatient Rehab
My alcoholism reached a head in spring of 2013, brought to desperation by the death of my wife and my subsequent despair. By this point I was drinking from three pm onward everyday, first wine and then vodka, whiskey or rum. Nothing would bring her back, but I could annihilate myself. It was starting to dawn on me, though, that this was making me nothing but miserable. I wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything. I wasn’t socializing or running errands. I could barely cook. Being on disability, I wasn’t working. My full-time job was getting to the bottom of the bottle.
25 Feb 2013
I would explain it to you, but I don’t know how.
These past months (as gone by my silence) have slowly burned me down to nothing. I took on too much took quickly, became everyone’s rock, and I forgot about myself.
My brothers death happened seven months ago. People are now telling me it’s time to pack his things away, time to dust his room (which is now my room). People are telling me it’s time to put him away.
But how am I meant to put away a life I am just beginning to grieve? And from this, I get asked; “Why do you feel this way now?”
14 Feb 2013
Death and the aftermath
My wife died four months ago. We had fought the night before, ending with her saying she was taking a bunch of pills. I thought she was joking. I woke up next to a corpse. I woke up with a black eye I didn’t remember getting and spent five minutes trying to clean the vomit from around her mouth until I realized she was dead. Time stands still, memories fail. I called 911 and the person on the line tried to get me to move her from the bed to the floor. I tried, moving a women my same height to the floor, dancing with rigor mortis. A rush of urine. It was then, holding that corpse, that it first hit me.
22 Nov 2012
Brother Mine
I’m afraid you have become furniture, brother mine.
Nothing but an engraved box among a hollow wooden desk.
You’re not longer those books your read, the letters that lined
The inside of your throat and tongue. You’re no longer
The songs you played with shaking fingers and bouncing
Legs at three AM when the world finally dozed to sleep.
17 Oct 2012
Goodbye, Katie
I want to give my heartfelt condolences to one of our writers on this website, Ava Gaul. Three days ago she lost her wife Katie, to suicide. As some of our writers have pointed out before, a person’s suicide not only affects those close to them, but entire communities. Despite not knowing Katie at all, […]
26 Sep 2012
The Science and Mathematics of Death
Editor’s note – this story is continued from On Death, Depression, And The Moments Of Solitude That Follow.
I feel with death, a new journey in life begins. We must relearn how to live for the sake of our livelihoods. For the sake of life itself.
04 Sep 2012
A Legacy Deferred
Note: I have not used any real names in this article. However, the people, places, and events described are real (to the best of my recollection).
Most people spend their lives actively seeking to create their legacy. For most people it is by having children, being good parents, and then good grandparents. For others it is the accumulation of wealth. Inventors have left indelible marks on our history and culture as well. Politicians and generals guide nations through both war and peace. For my childless, staff-grade officer Uncle “Michael”, though, there seemed to be no legacy after his senseless death in Iraq in 2003. Until now.
03 Jul 2012
My Experience With Ambien
Upon arriving which was already somewhat late, she gave me a small ziploc bag with an Ambien in it in case I had difficulty getting to sleep. I told her that was almost a guarantee, and so she suggested I take it as soon as I got settled for bed. Settling into the remarkably comfortable bed, I opened my laptop and checked Facebook again, checking in with people one more time for that awful day, and let a few close friends know I was staying with someone for the night and I was safe. I took the Ambien with the rest of my meds, and rolled over to try to sleep.
- 1
- 2