There was a Coke machine by the front door of my dorm at Kenyon College.

One reason I didn’t try hard to get an agent and a publisher back then was because I wanted control of the text.

These days, if I had to say what I needed most--after food, water, and air--it would be rest.

I want to tell you a story about two of the people who saved my sister-in-law’s life and who tried to save my brother Sam who died of a heart attack while snorkeling. My brain is changing with this story in it. It’s recalibrating. My brain keeps whispering to me: goodness, goodness, goodness.

Tomorrow, my Uncle Clint is turning 90. I don’t know how old my Uncle David, my Uncle John, and my Uncle Don are. Not 90. Clint, probably to your delight, you win.

Part of the experiment is to name your feelings: cheerful, pissy, scared, excited, guilty, amazed.

She is.

He’s disappearing, is what my brain was saying. Only he’s doing it slowly and telling you about it. This is amazing.

(One thing about being deep in grief is you have people share sleep aids with you, so my dreams have been…extra.)

To be grieving and to not resist it is, in some ways, pure pleasure.

We will remember you always and forever and miss you completely.

I have done this exercise countless times in my writing groups, and what I’ve found is that time and time again the writings sounded, sometimes even more than angry or furious, cleanly honest