1561 3 3
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The night wrapped its arms around us as we drove west, taking the highway past Medford towards Philly. The kids were asleep in the backseat and we were both counting the mile markers, staring out the windows with quiet eyes. I listened to the drone of the…
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156065
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“Can I feel it?” he reached his hands out immediately, expecting I’d say yes. I am the type to always say yes, right?
“Sure.” I confirmed, swallowing back my fear of his touch. He didn’t seem himself, like this. I led his hands to my hips and let them
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156021
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The other night while we stood in the kitchen locked in each other's stone silence, he finally said, “You're waiting for something to get you to the other side of grief. But there's no such thing.”
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15604024
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What used to be a scene has broken into fragments and blips of her on a screen I can’t control or manipulate.
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1560126
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All creatures know death at their very core, a tacit default--
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156000
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Dr. van Roos reminded the group that trauma is trauma...
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15601410
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One by one our friends are kicking the bucket. Let's get together. It's now or never, we figure.
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156000
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After Jonesy entered the bear habitat, he walked up to the biggest bear in the group and punched it square in the nose. The bear was visibly startled. I mean, bears don’t get punched that often. And there’s a reason: bears are ferocious animals.
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156011
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A rose and two dollars. Where did they come from? I didn't know anyone who had visited my parents' grave recently, yet that evening I saw a white rose on my mother's side and two bucks on my father's. I took the money and placed my own flowers with the rose. It had to have…
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156043
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"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut."
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156073
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Her skirt is so short, said the teenage girls to each other. I was 7 years old. I said: she looks like a slut. They laughed; I blushed. Later, the slut smiled at me. I tried to find the teenage girls but they were gone. I wanted to say: it's actually a pair of…
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156021
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In the dark, alone after she was gone, he would whisper her name into his pillow and fight the tears more out of shear exhaustion than anything else. He had mourned for her even before she had passed, as he watched helpless while the disease marched slowly and…
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156063
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Now it turns out, the story doesn’t begin with the butterfly lady, herself, but with her brother.
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15601414
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A wrinkled man lie atop an ivory-clad mattress, matched sheets covered his body, matched hair covered his head.
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156094
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“Are you my neighbor in 3D?” Was she?
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156032
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The elephant kept popping in and out of the savannah--which is to say, in and out of existence. It was an African bush elephant, which made this trick even more impressive.
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156097
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The day you came to the wedding the sky was so, so brightly July./ I saw my face where I left it the last time . . . .
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156000
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I have two of those hand exercisers jamming the
tray and keeping it locked in place
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156052
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I always sat in the backseat of the Dodge when my Dad drove, never in the front seat beside him. It was safer there when he ran over the dogs that wandered onto the road.
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1560137
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You are a space-walker and a time-traveler...
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156011
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“Man, that Fats just nothin’ but a powerhouse, nothin’ but ‘Jesus Rolled Away the Stone’ and them Cats his apostles.” La KeeSha replied, “Ya’ll a real Blues Daddy now.”
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15594520
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This is a lady who never got a break.
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155900
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I walked around the mountains and the gravel roads that once were my home. The rain made tiny rivers in the clay that ran hard and fast, and I splashed in them until my feet were saturated and my hair was stuck to my face and in my mouth salty and I cried
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15591212
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155963
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Ellen decided to soft-pedal the one month to live thing. Really, there was barely time for the patient to read Ellen's brochure.
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155998
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Who are all these rough looking people, hanging over me, itching me with their shaggy, grapevine arms? Like twisting, dangling down, painted, cloth Gargoyles on a quickly coming apart, dried up rope? It's always been the same old perch to view from. You wanted to know…
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155900
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Back when they were younger, David was always gushing about every little thing in his head, and his openness appealed to her as much as his muscular frame did. But after that year they spent apart, he was always ... smiling. Smiling and vague.
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155976
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She hadn’t died. She wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t even invisible. She just wasn’t see-able.
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155985
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Twice burned, it buries its graves.
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1559107
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Look at her. She doesn't want to be here. The kiss and “wouldn't miss it for the world” was as empty as her crossed arms, crossed legs, and jittery foot were loaded. She attacked the foam of her latte with a tiny red straw. I wanted to scream. Complain about the…
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