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My stomach lurched because I realized that Carl looked like his father, and therefore would not become handsome. He would never escape the prison of his ugliness. I hated Mr. Leach for destroying the beauty of Carl’s face for me.
By Theresa WilliamsJanuary 2005My sister is a writer. She writes terrible things about me. She thinks she is telling the family secrets, but we all think she’s hysterical.
By Jenny BitnerJanuary 2005I’m sitting in my parents’ living room, listening to my older brother, Ben, tell the family how he’s recently discovered that his phone is being tapped. His tone is casual, even upbeat, as if he were discussing a stretch of unusually good weather.
By Alan CraigDecember 2004Frost’s Original Letter Writer, a box of cassette tapes, a sealed letter
By Our ReadersDecember 2004“Your mother’s amazing,” my friends say. Several of them confide in her. They ask for and receive help from her on their deepest problems. Not me, though. She and I can sit in the same room for hours and barely speak. We’re like the north ends of two magnets, darting apart.
By Julie ReichertDecember 2004If you are reading this letter, then I have some bad news for you. You’ve always been a straight shooter, so here it is: You have Alzheimer’s.
By Brian BuckbeeDecember 2004We all want to be cared for out of pure love, but love does not come pure in this world. It comes stained, and sometimes stinking of urine, as her bedroom did near the end, when her catheter was leaking. In this world, love comes mixed with pity and anger and guilt and all those other less-than-noble emotions that we are not supposed to have. We should thank God love shows up at all.
By Alison LutermanNovember 2004At Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, they hand out maps of the store, as if it were a forest you might get lost in. My mother is looking for a novel; I want something that will help me identify the birds and trees of the Northwest. Oregon is much more lush than I remember; its green makes California look brown. My mother grew up in Portland but doesn’t recall the names of things. I lived here until the age of seven.
By Erin Van RheenenNovember 2004The foyer was home to my mother’s books but a place of exile for my brother and me. Around the time I was eleven and he seven, my mother began banishing us, singly, to the foyer without dinner in fits of unpredictable, unfathomable rage.
By Michelle Cacho-NegreteOctober 2004Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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