In Raymond Carver's classic short story "A Small, Good Thing" (you may also remember it from Robert Altman's Shortcuts), a mom orders a cake for her son's birthday party. Shortly after, the kid gets hit by a car on his way to school and falls into a coma. The baker, unaware of what's happened, keeps calling the birthday boys' parents and telling them to pick up the goddamn cake. And then-spoiler alert- the kid dies.
I don't mean the obvious. There is fascism rotting not just our nation but the world, fascism so bad that common folk have begun calling it what it is and not just the communists and anarchists I spend most of my time with. The government shutdown, an event engineered by one party alone, exists solely to squeeze to death the programs they couldn't cancel the funding for through legal means, permanently crippling only the social subsidies that they deem unfit.
When they meet, explosively, Aggie is riding the tail end of the success of a bestselling memoir, and running out of money. Her marriage collapsed in the aftermath of their son's death in an accident, and Aggie's behaviour towards the young man she believes was responsible has landed her with a restraining order. I really grew to enjoy her company, says Danes.
Two years on from the Pogues singer's death, his sister Siobhán and widow Victoria Mary Clarke are ensuring his legacy lives on with a new tour of the places in his beloved Tipperary that inspired him and his music. Here, the pair talk about dealing with their grief, honouring Shane's achievements and coping with life without him.
Feeling isolated after loss from parental death is common for teenagers, but that doesn't make their situation any easier. In fact, it can complicate the grief process even more if teens don't have anyone else close to them in their life who also lost a parent. The loss can suddenly make them feel different from their peers, almost like an outcast. This is where a helpful positive coping mechanism exercise can benefit them.
When Aberdeen-raised drummer and composer Sebastian Rochford's star rose around the millennium, he quickly made an impact with his precocious and inclusive awareness of 1950-1960s Monk-and-Miles jazz grooves, rock, funk, global music and more. From 2002, Rochford's unique sax-led quintet Polar Bear began earning nominations for Mercury, Mobo and Urban Music prizes, as well as the kind of fame rare in instrumental jazz.
I texted Becca as I went through the subway turnstile: "You won't believe it, but Sex and The City is back! But no Samantha, so you wouldn't like it." I added a grin emoji and tucked my phone in my bag. When I absent-mindedly took it out as I reached my stop, I almost dropped it in shock. For the first time since my dear friend had died five years earlier, she'd written back.
Ed and Sheena were about to have sex for the first time after their third miscarriage six weeks before. Sheena had recently felt Ed being distant towards her. This made her wonder if Ed's disappointment about their most recent loss was turning into anger. Did Ed silently blame her for their losses? After all, her body had failed to carry through the pregnancies. She hoped that the two of them getting intimate with one another that night would bring them closer together.
I lost my Dad suddenly this year. During the intermission of Wicked on Broadway, I saw his name pop up on my phone. "Hey Daddy, I'm at a play right now --" His sister-in-law stopped me before I could finish. "I have some really bad news," she said. "Your Dad died." A relative who recently got into painting sent me a lifelike painting of my Dad and it sits on my mantle.
"Not My Weekend," directed by Rona Segal, is a 19-minute short film making its international debut at the Chelsea Film Festival. The drama from Israel takes place during a single night and follows Sharon, a divorced woman in her 40s, who gets invited to a rave party on her free night, but when her ex-husband stands her up, she must find someone to watch her child if she wants to attend the party. The film stars Liat Tamari, Tamar Reinhertz, Meir Swissa, and Sahron Shaha.
Every time something reminded me of him, I broke out in tears. I've never been more heartbroken in my life. I'd go to bed crying and I felt this empty place inside of me, and I never thought I'd get over it. But every day gets better and better. I'll never stop loving him and I'll never get over it, but now I realize I did the right thing.
Can training a goshawk cure grief? Or treat it, in some way? Will keeping it indoors hooded so that it remains calm and then taking it out hunting allow you to reconnect radically with nature in a way that prissy townies will never understand? Or is this just a domesticated festival of cruelty to both bird and prey and a symptom of serious depression?
My Mother Reg wished me to go with him to the field, I paused because I did not want to go; But in her quiet way she made me yield Reluctantly, for she was breathing low. Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way, She pointed to the nail where hung my cap. Her eyes said: I shall last another day.
This past July, I bought eggplants at the farmers' market, intending to make my grandmother's signature maqlubeh: the cinnamon-and-allspice-scented rice dish layered with fried eggplants and chicken, cooked in a pot, then flipped onto a serving platter, forming a golden dome. Before I had the chance to peel the eggplants, stripe by stripe, and drop them into hot oil, a WhatsApp message came in from my mother-a single, waving-hand emoji at an unusual hour.
Thank you for everything, and I know Julia is looking at me from heaven and I believe she will protect me and she will help me to find different light, different life without her. She will give me support, she will give me the power she gave me already I feel, that I can manage - even I didn't expect I could talk to so many people. But, see, she's giving me the power, guys.
You're Going to Die: Poetry, Prose, & Everything Goes - A GRIEF & GRATITUDE OPEN MIC! Hosted by Ned Buskirk Featuring music from Nick Jaina Doors at 7:30pm. Event from 8:00-10:30pm with one intermission 18+ preferred TICKETS HERE: https://tinyurl.com/YG2DsfOct Support more with ticket tiers. You choose the amount. $15 Booster Ticket $20 Supporter Ticket $25 Patron Ticket $50 Champion Ticket $100 Superstar Ticket All tickets are still first come, first served.
We've known each other for a long time and never even flirted before this. I'd thought they were both straight, but there was touching and kissing in every combination that night, even if technically they only fucked me. We were all wasted and grieving, and it was a bad idea, but it was also very hot.
Meet Farah and Myriam two young girls from Gaza. For Farah, night means fear a reminder of loved ones killed in the darkness. For Myriam, her home was destroyed, taking her mother and sister. Her aunt's body remains buried under the rubble. She lives in a tent beside the ruins and this is where the two girls meet to share their grief, fears and hopes for the future after two years of war.
I was waiting in line to enter the church for the funeral. I couldn't believe he was even having one... A church funeral? The only times I ever remembered him going were Christmas Eve or Easter, but whatever-I shrugged it off. Why was I having these thoughts at a time like this? Why does it matter when he went to church?
A dead fish lies still on a chopping board, its rear end sliced off, scales scattered across the wood. One animated eye and open mouth make it look as though it might slither off the table. This is 's Fish Still Life (1950), a small, ghostly painting that is currently on show in Alice NeelStill Lifes and Street Scenes, a new exhibition at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels.
For more than 11 years, I told myself it was too early to grieve. My father, Ali Mustafa, was arrested by Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria on 2 July 2013 and disappeared. Since that day, we have had no word, no trace, nothing. Every morning since he was taken I made my first thought after waking up: He is alive. Every night I went to sleep repeating it.
These boys were playing for Colebrook Royals, a football club in Chigwell, Essex. It was 2019 and they were in the dressing room before team practice for a photoshoot arranged by the charity YoungMinds. The plan was that, after the photos, the boys would speak to two dads Nick Easey and Ryan Smith who had lost their teenage sons to suicide. The fathers wanted the boys to share their own feelings about mental health, to normalise such conversations,
Before the end of her marriage to alt-country darling Jason Isbell became a reality in December 2023, singer-songwriter and The Highwomen member Amanda Shires imagined its possibility on "Fault Line," from her 2022 album Take It Like a Man. Despondently etching out a rough patch the modern-day Johnny and June had endured, Shires sang as though underwater. As she envisioned how to answer the inevitable questions she'd get about their split, her voice slumped with exhaustion: "I'll say what's true/I don't know."
When I showed the photo to my friend, her reaction left me speechless. She practically threw the phone down and said, What an ugly family! Your mother is ugly and fat, and your father is ugly, too! She continued with more of the same. Other than that, she's a kind and giving friend. I can't get over what she said because I know I'm ugly and I hate being so. But if we were so offensive, why would she be friends with me?
I have just finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book and, like most of the internet, I have thoughts. Before I dive in though, let me tell you where I stand on Gilbert because after over two decades in the public eye, three novels, four memoirs, two film adaptations and millions upon millions of dollars, Gilbert is literary Marmite.
As I've shared before, when I was 12, I was playing at a friend's house one hot August afternoon when I was told I was needed at home. As I turned into my long driveway, I saw the lights of an ambulance, a stretcher being loaded into the back. The doors slammed shut. The whirling lights threw red streaks across the oaks as it sped past me out of our driveway. No one noticed the small, pale, immobilized girl standing by the mailbox.
I met Donny 18 months ago. For a while, we were both happy. Then suddenly, every Friday, Donny would make some excuse, smoke a cigarette and go to the bar across the street. Afterward, he would show up here drunk, and we would argue. When Donny was sober, he was a great guy, but every weekend he disappeared. Although I tried every day to help him, the drinking evolved into drugs. A few months ago, he came over to visit.
And so this piece of art you see behind us, we wanted to have a place in an alley like this where people who are on the street can come anytime of day or night to grieve those who they've lost. This is a memorial wall for those types of people. And we think it's really important. And the hand prints are there to say: We are here, we have been here.
