A story about loss through divorce — Ask any mother how they’d feel if the relationship with their child was broken beyond repair. Shattered? Desperate? Guilty? Suicidal? My answer is yes, to all of the above. The defining moment of this story comes amid a very unpleasant divorce. It is spring of 1991, and I have just…

Who knew the deli counter held such power? — “Please can I have a kilo of Inspiration and six packets of Endurance.” “Will that be all for today?” “Oh, wait, sorry, I just remembered I have people coming over tonight. I’ll need a few slices of Patience too. How big are they?” “Very small.” “That won’t be enough. …

But still, what the hell were you thinking? — I understand you were deluded. You can’t be blamed for constructing the future out of movies and magazines. It was 1969. Things were very different then. You had a picture in your head. In front of a crackling fire, reading great poetry to your eternal love. Soft classical piano music…

If you don’t like randomness, don’t read this. Sorry, I’m genetically British. That is definitely a non sequitur, as I think British people are very non random. Orderly. Look how they spontaneously queue, without instruction. When I was thirteen, I read all of Hemingway’s books twice and wrote a fifty-page thesis on why he…

A difficult conversation with a dead woman — The fourth suicide story I’ve heard in two weeks has, along with the other three (previously resting uneasily somewhere in my subconscious), locked itself in a room in my head. At various times of the day it kicks at the door and screams for attention. Nighttimes are worse. It isn’t…

To this day, no one understands why a father walked away from his loving daughter and her one year old twins — Twin boys just celebrated their sixteenth birthday, and they have no memory of their biological grandfather, Brian. He’s alive. He doesn’t live far away. He just doesn’t care enough to be in their lives. Perhaps even more shocking, the twins have an adorable brother, nine years old, whom their grandfather…

Learning about memory loss through my mother’s experience. — She sits across from me, her hands, etched in spidery blue veins, fingers gnarled, reach out and drop the small white tiles into place with a satisfying click. She smiles. Although I try my best to outsmart my mother, even at ninety-seven, I never win. And now, somehow, I don’t…

It definitely hasn’t been all cuteness and fun times — When my grandsons were tiny newborn twins, my daughter regularly woke me, crying hysterically, begging me to hurry over before she “killed them and buried them in the backyard”. My car, over the years, learned its way to her house and back with little effort from me. …

It was meant to be small talk but it turned into something more profound — I had just arrived at the coffee shop. My friend sat across the table, sipping her latte. She smiled. ‘What are you up to, today?’ I asked. ‘Actually, I’m going shopping for my mum’s burial outfit.’ ‘Oh!’ I gasped. Had I committed a terrible error, had I somehow overlooked the…