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For someone who’s been to New Jersey only a handful of times, I have a long history with the Garden State. I’m visiting it now because my Aunt Velma is dying. The cancer’s giving us just enough time to say goodbye.
By Thomas BoydOctober 2007My ex-husband is dying. A year and a half ago he was on the telephone with someone, and suddenly words vanished from his brain. English became a language he’d once known but had forgotten. The memory of those things called “words” was still there, but they were lumpy, pale, and almost unrecognizable, like dust-sheeted furniture in a mansion’s unused rooms.
By Lois JudsonSeptember 2007A tattoo, a stolen kiss, the Gulf of Tonkin incident
By Our ReadersAugust 2007I don’t remember the exact moment when I stopped seeing chemotherapy as a sort of adventure, a necessary bit of healthcare after a breast-cancer diagnosis, through which I would do my best to be a good girl, bright and brave. Maybe it was when I first encountered the nurses wearing plastic smocks to protect them from what they injected into me.
By Dorian GossyAugust 2007My daughter Mara has a suspicious lump in her breast; a biopsy is scheduled for later this week. If the lump turns out to be benign, I can go back to worrying about how far behind I am in my work or about the accelerated pace of global warming.
By Sy SafranskySeptember 2006Wounded like me, willing to talk, knowing / What a scarecrow cancer is, how people don’t / Want to linger near that kind of news, including / Friends who mean well, look away, act as if / They can’t hear, humming in their ear, “You’re / Human, human, human, you poor thing,
— from “Fellows”
By Mark Smith-SotoJuly 2006How long will it be, after you die, before the last living person who knew you also dies? And when there is no one left living who remembers you, what will your life mean then, after all of the noise?
By Charles DerrySeptember 2005My father used to tuck me in at night. It was a ritual I looked forward to throughout my childhood and even into adolescence, when my father became slightly repulsive to me — what with the errant hairs protruding from his nose and ears, and the smacking noise he made while eating.
By Barbi SchulickMarch 2005A cancer diagnosis, a positive pregnancy test, one last Sabbath dinner together
By Our ReadersMarch 2005Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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