death

I have a few things I want to do before I die. When, exactly, that happens is a dispute between my financial planner and the Internet.

“I’d never give much thought to navigating grief in the middle of a pandemic. Why would I?”

The blinds were drawn. A feeling of certainty fell peacefully over the room, and with it, relief. Karen leaned over the bed, over Bethany and Susan, and began to pray. All three of them so close together, waiting.

Ten years have passed since I last brushed Kate’s hair from her cheek. I’m not the same person I was then, and I know now I never will be. But I do the best I can with the life I have now.

One year after the tragic death of her daughter, Nancy Comiskey reflects on Kate and their lives together.

This was his 10th conviction. We left the justice center believing we could close the door on the criminal case. But a few years later, he walked out of prison a free man and moved 18 miles from our Brown County home. And he got a driver’s license.

With brutal, naked honesty, Nancy Comiskey opens a window into what grieving for one’s child is like: the yearning, the desperate need to keep the memory alive, the slow healing.

The ceremony was particularly close to the heart of one attendee, Indianapolis native Cammie Doyle. Her brother, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Jeremy Doyle, died in 2005 while deployed in Iraq.

We’ve forgotten how to die in this country. Death with dignity? Fuhgeddaboudit. Not so long as there are fortunes to be made in keeping us alive.

Including one of Indiana’s biggest cons, a complicated woman in her final days, a reality-TV hilljack, the crafty governor-elect, a big-deal farmer, the coupling of an actress and a corn-fed rocker, and more.

Mary was critically ill, and although she had implored her family not to worry me, they decided I needed to know. All I wanted was to climb in bed beside her, lay my head on her shoulder, and cry, but I didn’t.

Some residents were relatively unscathed; others saw practically all of their belongings destroyed. Today, the items salvaged by these southside neighbors mean more to them than ever.

“My daughter is hurt!” the mother yelled, desperate. A stranger appeared and made a tourniquet for the girl, and then a woman who said she was a nurse and a man who said he was a doctor carried her away. Trust us, they said.