This Is Us

An old story about addiction, recovery, and an old friend — “He always listened to you,” your mother says to me and I don’t have the heart to tell her that wasn’t so. She doesn’t know about the time we were 25 and you jumped off the moving train and I picked gravel out of your back for hours or the…

The space that we are raised in shapes us, for better or for worse — “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.” — Tennessee Williams The house groans. The groan starts off low and gradually…

A personal essay about significant endings — The end. Two words that have the simplest meaning yet send a trembling shiver down my spine every time I read them. The hidden complexity of those two words and everything they stand for shakes me to my very core. How two words can break me out in a cold…

Could its metaphors have been intentional? Reminding us that this is, indeed, our final goodbye? — For the past six years, us fans of NBC’s This is Us have been captivated by the familial journey of the Pearsons. In 1980, Jack and Rebecca (portrayed by Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore) are pregnant with fraternal triplets. Rebecca gives birth to two of them: a boy whom they…

I will be sucking life’s marrow ’til the very end — The last few weeks have been hellish in this country. We’ve seen the worst of human nature on display, not only in the shooters, but in many of the people responding to the shootings. We’ve seen a government paralyzed, incapable of taking action despite so many people hurting. This is…