[{"id":7253,"date":"2026-09-02T08:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T08:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/?p=7253"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:56:09","slug":"the-wills-of-twenty-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/nonfiction\/the-wills-of-twenty-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wills of Twenty Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna Mirer<\/h3>\n

It is eleven o\u2019clock at night, and I am stomping around with half a skull in my hand. \u201cWhere are all the goddamn pipe cleaners?\u201d I ask the room. The situation is not really urgent enough to require profanity, but I am tired and miserable, and I am resorting to overstatement in the hope of making my tired and miserable colleagues laugh. My study partner and I are getting confused about the difference between two holes in the skull, called the inferior orbital fissure and the infraorbital foramen. They have similar names, but different functions. The characters, if you will, of the foramen and the fissure are quite distinct, and to demonstrate that, I need to push a pipe cleaner through each of them to represent the paths of different nerves.<\/p>\n

There are five days left in the spring semester, and the anatomy lab is getting squalid. Printed lab guides and anatomy atlases with broken spines are strewn everywhere. The pipe cleaners have all disappeared; there is a shortage of forceps and probes; the dispensers are out of soap. The good model of the inner ear is missing, and is rumored to have been hidden by a crazed medical student. Skulls with the tops sawn off have been jumbled with the tops of different skulls. There is a Snickers wrapper on the floor, which means that someone first ate a candy bar in here, then littered. We have been stepping around the wrapper for two days. The maintenance staff does not like to come in this room, so the floors have not been cleaned since January, when these twenty cadavers in tanks were wheeled in. In that time much liquid has been spilled. The tanks are filled with a preservative solution that sloshes out, but there is also blood, fat, mucus, feces, and the nondescript juice that fills the crevices of an embalmed corpse.<\/p>\n

Our last exam will cover structures of the head and neck. At this late stage in our studies, most of the body below that has already been cut away. Now the heads have been bisected to reveal the structures behind the nose. It turns out, strangely, that people still look like themselves, even with layers of their faces removed. We learned in neurobiology that there is a section of the cerebral cortex devoted entirely to recognizing faces. People with damage to that part of the brain may lose the ability to recognize others by sight, or to know their own image in a mirror. This is called prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Here in the anatomy lab, faces are all that remain to remind us of human individuality.<\/p>\n

\n

Tonight I am studying with Rachel. Level-headed, serious, and gentle, she wants to be a surgeon, and she likes the tactile aspects of dissection. Rachel once let fall that her lab partners don\u2019t like to use their hands as much as she does. This being as close as Rachel comes to complaining, I surmise that she has been stepping up to the \u201cgross\u201d jobs, of which there are many. We are searching for a muscle on the front side of the larynx, so we flip a bisected head backwards, and lay two halves of a face flat on the table. For a fraction of a second we take in the surreal vision, and Rachel cannot stifle a murmur. I glance at her, but I do not ask her if she is okay. With a bit of a pang, I press on, and in doing so, I signal to my friend that she is supposed to be tougher than that.<\/p>\n

Rachel\u2019s murmur, any murmur, is such a minor thing on the spectrum of medical student coping mechanisms. Among our colleagues, anatomy lab has evoked responses which range from mild guilt to deliberate callousness. Only one student actually abstained from dissecting; some of us suspected he had a religious objection that he didn\u2019t care to make public to the na\u00efve and frequently judgmental population that makes up a first-year class in medical school. Many, many cultures hold the integrity of human remains sacred. Medical culture initiates its healers through ritual disintegration.<\/p>\n

\n

The first day I came into the lab I was overwhelmed with sadness. I took one look at my cadaver\u2019s face and felt a rush of love. It wasn\u2019t like me; I\u2019m not prone to strong emotions about the deaths of strangers. How illogical to feel bereft when I hadn\u2019t lost anyone or anything; on the contrary I had acquired something, or someone. And I knew nothing about the character of the woman I didn\u2019t lose. Before she donated her body, she could have been a miser, a philistine, a bigot, an abuser. Yet I felt the way I feel upon learning of the death of a friend. When I came home from the lab, I sat at my bathtub washing the smell of preservative off my arms and weeping. My husband came in to comfort me. \u201cIt was harder than I expected,\u201d I told him, unnecessarily. \u201cShe was tiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

By my next visit to the lab, though, my dominant emotion was fear of screwing up. Grades (even of the pass-fail variety) have the unfortunate effect of promoting self-absorption, and performance anxiety can consume the impulse to reflect. I tended to project my insecurities onto the cadavers, imagining that with each missed test question I was letting them down. I would try to justify my presence by naming structures and reciting their functions, pouring my energy into diagrams and mnemonics and repetition. Alas, I am not very good at anatomy exams, so I was left hoping it was enough that having passed anatomy would allow me to do the things I am good at and the things I came here to do.<\/p>\n

Obsessing over tests is a convenient, if unconscious, method of dissociating from the act of cutting into people\u2019s bodies. But there are others. Most of my colleagues seemed to follow the grand tradition of objectification, striving to perceive the tissues in their hands as inhuman. Others relied on the equally time-honored strategy of gallows humor. One of my lab partners, a former nurse\u2019s aide, prided herself on her strong stomach and did the lion\u2019s share of our dissecting. By her own admission, she hasn\u2019t got much of a filter, and she seemed at times to be daring us to object to her frankness. When we removed the brain she observed, \u201cMmm, the cerebellum looks just like hamburger.\u201d At the time I considered protesting, but decided she didn\u2019t deserve moralizing from me, so instead I responded, \u201cMore like turkey burger.\u201d I immediately apologized to the group, but felt like my comment lingered for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n

My other two lab partners were quite open about their discomfort. One usually tried to get out of the lab as quickly as possible. She sometimes seemed to retreat mentally, distracting herself by trimming fat off our cadaver\u2019s organs. The other one occasionally got faint and needed to step out. Both would become agitated if the shroud covering our cadaver\u2019s face began to slip off. They never saw her face until the day it had to be skinned. \u201cShe looks like such a nice lady,\u201d the one prone to faintness observed sadly, as I was preparing to cut into the forehead. \u201cShe may have been,\u201d I replied. \u201cWe know she did a very nice thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman whose cadaver we were dissecting had, in fact, done something great for us: she had willed her body to the school through the Anatomical Gift program. It\u2019s a comfort to me to know that all of the people whose bodies we were using in this way knew what would happen to their remains. We have no John Does in the anatomy department, and like many schools we honor the donors every year with a student-run memorial service to which the donors\u2019 families are invited.<\/p>\n

I was involved in planning the memorial in the beginning, but stepped down over creative differences. My notions of how to honor the dead involved too-candid descriptions of the bodies, and too-open discussion of our ambivalence. Where I come from, people take offense at the slightest hint of sugarcoating, especially at memorial services, where grief is the point. But, as I am daily reminded, I\u2019m not from around here. Even if it wasn\u2019t my cup of tea, the service was still quite moving in the end.<\/p>\n

Curiously, it seems that every year all of the donors have been white. That is remarkable even in a Midwestern state like this one, teeming with Caucasians. I have no idea why it is so, but it makes me wonder. What kinds of privilege might be invisibly woven into the decision to donate one\u2019s body to science?<\/p>\n

The skull I poked with pipe cleaners did not come from our cadaver, or from any other donor. It came from the remains of a person who died in India many decades ago, and who was probably extremely poor. Some people or some company made a living by hauling away the bodies of the destitute and burying them with a particular species of beetle that ate away flesh. Months later they dug up perfectly clean skeletons and sold them to Western medical schools. The schools are no longer allowed to buy skulls this way, so our professors remind us that the ones we have are irreplaceable. Treating them with care includes not resting them on top of cadavers, so that they will not be covered in juices. Despite the warnings, slime accrues, spiny prominences break off, teeth fall out. None of the skulls is completely intact; only an expert could look at one and imagine a face. Any connection to the memories that used to lie inside these bones was broken long ago.<\/p>\n

\n

Though Rachel and I can still find the vision of disoriented flesh uncanny, the moment passes and is quickly forgotten. We have a long list of structures to identify, and as the evening wears on I must fight the temptation to panic. We cannot find a useful example of the stylopharyngeus muscle on any of the cadavers dissected by students, so we move into the room with the prosections (a near-cute nickname for professional dissections, which are the work of trained anatomists).<\/p>\n

We open up the tank full of heads. Some still have all their hair, many have broken noses, a few still have eyes over which the lids do not close. Rachel shows me one specimen, identifiable by its color, that has been here since the 1960s. The man it once belonged to must have been born in the nineteenth century. \u201cWhat do you think he would have thought,\u201d I ask her, \u201cif he could have known that forty years after his death, medical students would still be learning from his preserved head?\u201d I like to think he would have been proud, but I am inventing. He may have wanted nothing more from his donation than to save his family funeral expenses. Perhaps he was so sure of the finality of death that the fate of his remains wouldn\u2019t even have interested him.<\/p>\n

I find it easy to imagine stories for him, because I can see his nose and mouth and eyelids. It is harder to construct a biography from the contents of the next tank, the tank full of female pelvises. We used these specimens to study structures like the labia majora and the clitoris. Occasionally when my mind wandered I would think these are what someone used to make love, and perhaps <\/em>to bring people into the world<\/em>. In the beginning I covered our cadaver\u2019s genitals with a shroud whenever possible. A friend pointed out that I was using the same draping technique we had been taught to preserve a patient\u2019s modesty during a physical exam. Eventually, though, so much of the lower body had been cut away that it no longer felt like a meaningful gesture. I no longer felt I was looking at a naked body, only parts.<\/p>\n

A student at a medical school in another state told me a story about a cadaver. When she took anatomy, her group dissected the body of a man who had died young. Young body donors are very unusual (among those at our school the average age at death is eighty), and this person seemed to have been in excellent health\u2014athletic, strong, and apparently free of injury or disease. On the ankle was a tattoo of his own name. Curious about the man\u2019s story, the student looked him up on the internet. She learned that he had been a serial rapist and murderer, who was executed by lethal injection. She would go on to dissect the rest of his body, including his penis, thinking all the while of how it had been used as a weapon.<\/p>\n

\n

I had been hoping to learn our donor\u2019s name at the memorial service, but I didn\u2019t recognize her among the photographs brought by the families. Although we were not to learn about her life, one of my lab partners eventually learned the contents of her death certificate from the school morticians. I was expecting the cause of death to be complications of an aortic aneurysm, since we could see the place in her chest where her largest artery ballooned out, and crunch the plaques in the vessel wall between our fingers. We knew from the fragility of her skeleton and the exaggerated curve of her backbone how severe her osteoporosis had been. Once when we were flipping the body over, I broke her scapula just by bracing against the turn. We also knew she had been feeble at the end, because her muscles were too atrophied to have been well used. Her stomach was empty, and so small that she could not have eaten normally in some time. According to her documentation, she died in her late seventies from dementia and advanced Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

Because of the woman\u2019s progressive deterioration, on the day of the face dissection we couldn\u2019t make out the muscles used for chewing or forming expressions. We called a professor over to help. \u201cI don\u2019t blame you for having trouble,\u201d he said, probing and cutting through the unrecognizable mush below her cheekbone. \u201cThis is the body from hell.\u201d I took his comment personally. She was old and sick and paralyzed<\/em>, I wanted to snap. She\u2019s not from hell,<\/em> and she\u2019s not in it either.<\/em><\/p>\n

I prefer Rachel\u2019s response, when I tell her about the face dissection. \u201cI don\u2019t want to die with mushy muscles,\u201d she says. Neither do I. I think I might like to die of an epidural hematoma, caused by a falling geranium pot that cracks my skull while I am out for a stroll on my 108th birthday. I wouldn\u2019t mind having my body donated afterwards, but I\u2019d rather it be put to use testing automobile crashes or something\u2014not for dissection.<\/p>\n

\n

After that first day in the lab, my feelings of love remained, but I never felt sad again. Eventually I found I didn\u2019t need to dissociate, or to objectify my cadaver, because I was sure that my cadaver was not a person. It was an aspect of a person. I feel lucky to hold that conviction, because as long as I believe that to be true, I know the work we did in that room was not an unfortunate means to an end, but was itself the right thing to do. We began with a dead body, and over many months we transfigured it into memory, skill, strength, gratitude, and indistinct organic matter. No matter what we make of our lives next, we have done a good and appropriate thing to honor twenty people by respecting their wishes for their remains. They did not wish for a semblance of rest, and they did not wish to seem whole. They wished for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Anna Mirer.
\n“It is eleven o\u2019clock at night, and I am stomping around with half a skull in
\nmy hand.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tpgb_global_settings":"","_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-7253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction","tag-issue-18"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"BLR","author_link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/author\/blr\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/18-300x300.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Nonfiction<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Nonfiction<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Issue 18<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Issue 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They don\u2019t smell much like anatomy books. The drawings are clean, ordered, the striations of muscle cells combed out tight and smooth, like the strings of a harp...\"","rel":"","context":"In "Nonfiction"","block_context":{"text":"Nonfiction","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/nonfiction\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Issue-17-Cover.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Issue-17-Cover.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Issue-17-Cover.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Issue-17-Cover.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11218,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/poetry\/letter-from-a-code-talker-1945\/","url_meta":{"origin":7253,"position":3},"title":"Letter from a Code Talker, 1945","author":"Rosalind Aparicio-Ram\u00edrez","date":"November 28, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Sean Sam. \"The commanders wish me to say \/ the language beaten from me. \/ Each time I speak another sun \/ drops from the abnormal sky.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"BLR Issue 47 Cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":710,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/table-of-contents\/issue-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":7253,"position":4},"title":"Issue 06","author":"Samia","date":"June 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Issue 6","rel":"","context":"In "Table of Contents"","block_context":{"text":"Table of Contents","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/table-of-contents\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/06.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/06.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/06.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/06.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4019,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/fiction\/his-own-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":7253,"position":5},"title":"His Own Time\u00a0","author":"Danielle Ofri","date":"December 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by John Thompson. \"I did a little time once. 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Eileen Cronin<\/h3>\n

Our heads are filled with the native rhythm of an aerobic beat and hot anticipation. My mouth is moving: talkie, talkie, talk, nervous chatter at our table. It\u2019s okay; this guy can\u2019t hear a word I\u2019m saying over the Bee Gees blaring on the speakers. He\u2019s just grinning at me; he doesn\u2019t care about words. This is Spring Break, Fort Lauderdale, 1979. The stench of warm beer on sunburned flesh intoxicates us. It is the smell of independence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How deep is your love? How <\/span><\/i>deep<\/span> is your love?\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Because of Krista and Sharon\u2014perfect 10s on the Bo Derek scale\u2014college boys from Everywhere, USA track us down in each bar. The three of us could pass as blood sisters, with our tan faces, copper feathers and golden highlights\u2014Farrah Fawcett style. We have our upturned noses and pointed chins; though I do not carry mine as high as they do. Back in Cincinnati, I am <\/span>that<\/span><\/i> girl with no legs\u2014I was born without them because of thalidomide, but that\u2019s another story. I wear two fake legs, and in a pair of pants with a crowd of strangers, I become a beautiful girl with a limp. A novelty!<\/span><\/p>\n

Back home, I am considered a 4\u2014I get one point for the pretty face, one for a sense of humor, and two for sheer determination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tonight, though, I\u2019m shooting for a 10. New to me is the sandy blond with Donny Osmond teeth who sits next to me at our table. He\u2019s gorgeous; his lashes are longer than mine. See, I say to myself: Except for the legs, I\u2019m no different from Krista and Sharon. I\u2019ve been telling myself this line all year; only now, I\u2019ve got the cute sandy blond to prove it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He wants to know about me, so I tell him I\u2019m the highest-seeded tennis player on our varsity team\u2014a freshman at that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Krista and Sharon stop their flirting and turn twin Farrahs in my direction. I\u2019m terrified and exhilarated all at once<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> My heart ricochets from one emotion to the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

My sandy blond is with me, though. He\u2019s riding the roller coaster grandeur of a wounded tennis star. He\u2019s nodding his head; yes, he can see that, the bit about my athletic prowess. He squeezes my biceps. Only a tennis player could have arms like those, he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Krista and Sharon bite down on a snort. I blush and my sunburned cheeks sizzle under beads of sweat. I do not explain that biceps like these come from lifting the dead weight of my entire being every time I get out of a chair. No, I say that I ran into some bad luck, tripped on a tennis ball, got under my feet, don\u2019t know how it happened, both ankles twisted, and here I am: a limping tennis star.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How deep is your love? How <\/span><\/i>deep<\/span> is your love?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Krista\u2019s hazel eyes expand to impossible proportions, and Sharon\u2019s cool brown eyes narrow. We will have stories over Mimosas\u2014poolside, in the morning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And my guy is doing whatever it takes. He says he could see something like this clumsy, tennis-ball stuff happening; stuff like that happens to him all the time; but what the hell? Should we dance? Could we dance with the limp and all?<\/span><\/p>\n

I start to say no, but his eyes say yes, so I stand up, only to face the silver-studded disco ball with a million tiny mirrors reminding me that I\u2019m a one-in-a-million girl\u2014and that I\u2019d rather be like the other 999,999.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Colored light rays snap and scatter from the rotating ball. My heart ricochets again. What am I getting myself into?<\/span><\/p>\n

On our way to the dance floor he says, you sure screwed up those ankles; and I say, I\u2019m just glad they\u2019re attached to my feet. I don\u2019t tell him that I once got out of the car only to realize that my driving foot was still sitting on the floorboard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How deep is your love? How <\/span><\/i>deep<\/span> is your love?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Mobs of couples jam onto the dance floor, and we are there. My man in pink cotton has given new meaning to the sheep\u2019s clothing. He takes me in his arms for this slow dance, and I look up at his smile: Donny Osmond teeth, which begin to seem more like fangs. But who<\/span> exactly is the wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing here?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, it is so intoxicating, the lie. I want to keep it going. I can\u2019t believe he\u2019s picked me. The song ends before I\u2019m ready to let it go.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, we are hurled into more Bee Gees: <\/span>You can tell by the way I use my walk I\u2019m a woman\u2019s man: no time to talk. Music loud and women warm, I\u2019ve been kicked around since I was born…\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m clapping for my partner while he does the John Travolta, and I am mesmerized by those hips; no man in<\/span> Cincinnati moves his pelvis like that. He takes my hands in his and gives me an easy twirl. The tension in my heart softens\u2014I can do this.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s grinning. He has plans for us. He grasps me by the waist and lifts me up into the air. My momentary calm begins to splinter. He starts to turn around, spinning me under the lights. As we gain momentum, I become a human color wheel, whirling in the disco lights. My screams echo and bounce off the crowd. No! Which in college-speak means yes. Yes!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My partner is buoyed by the excitement and my screams, spinning us ever faster. My body, in midair, is a propeller, a motion I know I cannot sustain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel my left leg begin to disengage, but I am powerless to stop it. It severs off and launches from my lemon-yellow corduroys, the penny loafer guiding the missile into the mob, into places I was never meant to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNOW!\u201d I scream. \u201cPut me down NOW!<\/span><\/p>\n

He hears that and puts me down. I crumple to the floor, a one-legged Raggedy Ann, in the midst of a pulsing disco. My partner is still dancing; he doesn\u2019t realize what has happened. His face earnest, sincere, he\u2019s reaching for the ghost-partner in front of him, never imagining her demise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ah ha ha ha stayin\u2019 alive. Stayin\u2019 alive<\/span><\/i>. The lyrics swirl around me as I realize that I\u2019m about to be trampled.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I have to get that leg. The crowd is drunk and I know that a wooden leg would make a nice fraternity souvenir. A drop of someone\u2019s sweat lands on my head, right at the part. Or is it something worse?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I glance back one last time at my sandy-blond guy in the pink oxford, still dancing. He doesn\u2019t even notice me, the girl who now starts to wriggle away on her elbows.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And if he does, he doesn\u2019t follow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And if he follows, I don\u2019t want to know about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want only to hide in this jungle of dancing feet on a floor vibrating from the stomping mass, but one couple notices me and others begin to stare. I pray the sandy blond is not among them; I\u2019ll settle for abandonment over more humiliation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I mobilize. My tennis arms become machetes to carve out my escape. I start chopping at ankles with my wrists. The magnificent sting is nothing compared to my embarrassment. I butt my head into anonymous thighs\u2014some are in jeans, some in polyester, some are bare flesh in short shorts. My hands go numb as I press against the floor for leverage while my head continues as a battering ram. Someone taps me on the back; I jerk my shoulder up to shield my face. Is it him? Would he actually come after me?<\/span><\/p>\n

I turn around to face that first couple who noticed me. The man is standing there, looking off to the side, as if he were about to offer his jacket to a naked woman on the street. \u201cCan we help?\u201d he asks.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so stunned by this act of kindness that my arms begin to wobble. I almost collapse, but that leg is out there; someone could be stomping on it right now. \u201cI lost my leg!\u201d I have to scream so he can hear me. He nods politely–as if this were an everyday occurrence–and asks, \u201cWhat direction?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know. I only remember being a propeller and then a color wheel and then a broken doll. How can I explain all of this over the noise? It could be anywhere. So I point upward. \u201cIt just flew off!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll find it,\u201d he says, slipping easily into the mob. And he does eventually find it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the meantime, I\u2019m left alone to face his partner. From where I\u2019m sitting she\u2019s got the longest legs in the world, stretching out like saplings anchored to the earth. She looks nervous, like she might laugh or cry at any moment. She\u2019s probably my age but the halter top, bellbottoms, make-up, and frosted hair make her seem older. On another night I would have rolled my eyes at this disco queen, but she squats down to my level and her eyes are as innocent as Bambi\u2019s under mascara. She blinks, and we stare at each other. In this mass of human sweat she smells of lemon. Then in a voice that borders on a scream she asks, \u201cWhat can I do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHide me!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She squints and tries to imagine that before she stands up, stretching her limbs to form a curtain around me. Her tanned arms are stretched thin, though her bellbottoms form a nice cover. \u201cIs this good?\u201d she asks, but the doubt on her face is answer enough. How can I tell her that it doesn\u2019t matter anyway? There is no sandy blond guy coming after me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It was only one small lie in a bar during spring break. I\u2019m sure that everyone lies about themselves in a bar on spring break, but for me it was a fiercely desired escape. It was a stolen moment in which I could exist without having to explain anything. It was the exhilaration of exerting control over how I was viewed by society. It was the freedom to plunge into the chemistry of attraction, of knowing that whatever transpired or didn\u2019t transpire would have nothing to do with my legs. Although deep down, I suppose I knew that it would ultimately fail, I couldn\u2019t help but succumb to the few heady minutes of freedom from the inevitable judgment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lie was wrenched off and hurled into the abyss, and now the truth is down here on the floor with me. The truth is that I cannot control how anyone sees me, and that I must somehow part with that need. So I\u2019m fleeing less from my partner than from my lying self. I\u2019ve lost something tonight\u2014something more than a leg, something more than a lie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eileen Cronin.
\n“Our heads are filled with the native rhythm of an aerobic beat and hot anticipation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":10503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tpgb_global_settings":"","_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133,53],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-2148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction","tag-disability","tag-issue-15"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Danielle Ofri","author_link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/author\/danielle\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15-300x300.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Nonfiction<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Nonfiction<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Disability<\/a>","Issue 15<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Disability<\/span>","Issue 15<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 weeks ago","modified":"Updated 3 weeks ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 1, 2026","modified":"Updated on September 2, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 1, 2026 8:08 pm","modified":"Updated on September 2, 2026 1:58 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","tpgb_featured_images":{"full":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15.png",750,750,false],"tp-image-grid":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15-700x700.png",700,700,true],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15.png",750,750,false],"large":["https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15.png",750,750,false],"default":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/the-plus-addons-for-block-editor\/assets\/images\/tpgb-placeholder.jpg"},"tpgb_post_meta_info":{"get_date":"September 1, 2026","get_modified_date":"September 2, 2026","category_list":{"category":[{"term_id":6,"name":"Nonfiction","slug":"nonfiction","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":107,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":133,"name":"Disability","slug":"disability","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":133,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":21,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":53,"name":"Issue 15","slug":"issue-15","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":53,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"Abilities and Disabilities: The Range of Human Function","parent":0,"count":22,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":false},"author_name":"Danielle Ofri","author_url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/author\/danielle\/","author_email":"dofri@blreview.org","author_website":"","author_description":"","author_facebook":"","author_twitter":"","author_instagram":"","author_role":["administrator","mpch-memberpress-coach"],"author_firstname":"Danielle","author_lastname":"Ofri","user_login":"Danielle","comment_count":0,"post_likes":0,"post_views":0},"tpgb_post_category":{"category":"Nonfiction<\/a> ","post_tag":"Disability<\/a> Issue 15<\/a> "},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8672,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/poetry\/i-wasnt-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":0},"title":"I Wasn’t There","author":"Stacy Bodziak","date":"May 26, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Subhaga Crystal Bacon. \"Cancer came and took a lung, \/ then came and took the rest \/ of him. And I wasn\u2019t there...\"","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Issue 44 - 2023 Prize Winner","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/44.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/44.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/44.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/44.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11111,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/artist-statement\/issue-47-artist-statement\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":1},"title":"Issue 47 Artist Statement","author":"Rosalind Aparicio-Ram\u00edrez","date":"September 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mary Lacy. \"When I look at these mosaics now, I remember both the terrifying vulnerability and deep strength it took to begin.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Artist Statement"","block_context":{"text":"Artist Statement","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/artist-statement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"BLR Issue 47 Cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/47.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11077,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/poetry\/brighter-when-wet\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":2},"title":"Brighter When Wet","author":"Rosalind Aparicio-Ram\u00edrez","date":"September 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kai Coggin. \"I remove the day, strip myself \/ of the expectations and the pain, \/ the way my soul strives and my flesh endures...\"","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Issue 40","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/40.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/40.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/40.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/40.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18045,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/foreword\/issue-22-foreword\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":3},"title":"Issue 22 Foreword","author":"Irene Zampetoulas","date":"June 8, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Whether the poem makes us laugh or cry, or clutch the paper to our hearts, it has to move us to another place, a new reality, a new connection...","rel":"","context":"In "Foreword"","block_context":{"text":"Foreword","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/foreword\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Issue 22 2012 Prize Winners","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/22.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/22.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/22.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/22.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18253,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/poetry\/jellyfish-and-grit\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":4},"title":"Jellyfish and Grit","author":"Irene Zampetoulas","date":"June 12, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Maya Klauber. \"I awake in a hospital bed to what could\u00a0\/ only be a thousand tiny jellyfish infusing\u00a0\/ my veins. Typical. I came here to be healed,\u00a0\/ and now I\u2019ve got a jellyfish problem.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/48-Cover-with-vertical-bar.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/48-Cover-with-vertical-bar.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/48-Cover-with-vertical-bar.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/48-Cover-with-vertical-bar.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3505,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/poetry\/viewing-frida-kahlos-the-suicide-of-dorothy-hale\/","url_meta":{"origin":2148,"position":5},"title":"Viewing Frida Kahlo\u2019s ‘The Suicide of Dorothy Hale’","author":"Danielle Ofri","date":"December 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Virginia Chase Sutton. \"I stand before the painting a decade and a half \/ before I am transformed. Oil on wood panel \/ lush in detail\u2014blood curdling into script, black velvet gown, \/ hair dressed like glory.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Poetry"","block_context":{"text":"Poetry","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/poetry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/11.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/11.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/11.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/11.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/15.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2148"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17372,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2148\/revisions\/17372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2148"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=2148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":10699,"date":"2026-09-01T16:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/?p=10699"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:58:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:58:05","slug":"at-the-mercy-meal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/nonfiction\/at-the-mercy-meal\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Mercy Meal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lindsay Starck<\/h3>\n

At the Mercy Meal, the servers clear plates of hummus and tabbouleh while your cousin Edna clutches memories of your Aunt Kathy in gnarled hands. (Four years ago, it was Kathy who pushed back her chair in this very restaurant and thanked the assembly for their memories of her mother.) The cold November light pools in the parking lot and glimmers silver through the windows. We flew one thousand miles last night, landed in the smallest, darkest morning hours, and slipped briefly into an unfamiliar bed together. We have spent the day swaying on our feet. I can feel your gaze on me, here at the table; I know that you see me cup my forehead, briefly, in my palm. I\u2019m so tired. I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The faces turned toward your cousin Edna are heavy-browed, jowly. Four long tables lined with descendants that have sprouted from a single branch. (Six months from now, when we are disinfecting our doorknobs and canceling our trip to reconnect with your extended family in Beirut, I\u2019ll wonder if I will ever see the holy grove of cedar trees before they vanish.) I\u2019m watching your Uncle Jack, sitting low in his chair at the end of the table nearest us, his gray knit cap pulled to his ears, the cancer cells blooming through his brain. I can\u2019t be the only person in this crowded room who is silently tallying the months, weeks, hours, minutes that he has left.<\/span><\/p>\n

We applaud your cousin Edna and the salads arrive. Iceberg lettuce, wilted carrots, a bumpy pepperoncini. You slip down from your stool and vanish while I poke wearily at my tomatoes and listen to the murmur of your mother and your sister. (Two hours ago, through clouds of incense in the Maronite church, I watched your mother and your father speak together with the ease and wariness of strangers who used to love each other.) When the servers return, bearing white platters heavy with baked fish and chicken kabobs, you are still gone. Circulating between the tables, probably, clapping suited shoulders and kissing withered cheeks. As I look for you, I catch your Uncle Jack\u2019s eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

If this scene\u2014these baskets of bread, this mediocre rice, that parking lot awash with light\u2014is familiar to me from all the other funerals we\u2019ve attended here, how much more familiar is it to him? He drags his fork across his plate and the room seems to collapse. When the walls steady again, we\u2019ve all slid one year into the future. The meal is the same, my black dress is the same. Your sister is still here alone, and your father calls your mother by the wrong name again. But Uncle Jack is gone, and the speeches are for him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your warm palm on my forearm pulls me back to the present. Exhaustion thunders in my ears, throbs inside my aching head. When my vision clears, you are handing me a paper cup of espresso, steamed milk, and vanilla. I sip it reverently, deciding that you\u2019ve never looked more handsome. (Four hours ago, in the perfumed funeral home, you held me close and promised that I wouldn\u2019t have to see the body.) After a while, the servers shuttle the plates away again. Your cousins slip into their wool coats and stack pieces of baklava on paper napkins for the drive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I carry my coat and my bag to an empty corner booth to wait out the extended Lebanese goodbyes. (Nine months from now, when Uncle Jack collapses in the shower, the government will not permit us to gather.) I watch you as if from a great distance, your words a low buzz, the whole dining room shimmering with clear white light. How terrifying it feels to be missing you now, so long before you are gone.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lindsay Starck.
\n“If this scene\u2014these baskets of bread, this mediocre rice, that parking lot awash with light\u2014is familiar to me from all the other funerals we\u2019ve attended here, how much more familiar is it to him? He drags his fork across his plate and the room seems to collapse.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":10530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tpgb_global_settings":"","_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[194],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-10699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nonfiction","tag-issue-42"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Rosalind 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"},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3900,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/fiction\/cousin-esther-goes-to-chicago\/","url_meta":{"origin":10699,"position":0},"title":"Cousin Esther Goes to Chicago\u00a0","author":"Danielle Ofri","date":"December 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Cori Baill. \"All that time I\u2019ve been working here, mopping the floors, emptying the trash, washing down rooms, and watching the wet-behind-the-ears young pup doctors learn their business.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Fiction"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/fiction\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Issue 1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, 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We encourage you to explore more from the issue on our website or, better yet, to pick up a copy!","rel":"","context":"In "Issue Highlights"","block_context":{"text":"Issue Highlights","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/issue-highlights\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Issue 1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/01.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10586,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/fiction\/the-liver-nephew\/","url_meta":{"origin":10699,"position":3},"title":"The Liver Nephew","author":"Rosalind Aparicio-Ram\u00edrez","date":"May 21, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Susan Ito. \"And so Parker didn\u2019t say no, but he didn\u2019t say yes. He had conversations with his uncle\u2019s physicians, both the primary-care doctor and the hotshot guy in charge of the transplant team, who spoke rapidly and repeated himself, a verbal twitching. 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I myself am just a regular person and artist who finds rules very difficult to adhere to.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews"","block_context":{"text":"Interviews","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/interviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/nina-adel-square.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3967,"url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/fiction\/in-this-skin\/","url_meta":{"origin":10699,"position":5},"title":"In This Skin","author":"Danielle Ofri","date":"December 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Emma Pattee. \u201c'The difference between a good butthole and a bad butthole is the wink.'\u00a0 This is the best man talking.\"\u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Fiction"","block_context":{"text":"Fiction","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/category\/fiction\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/39.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/39.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/39.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/39.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/42.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17527,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions\/17527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10699"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=10699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":19551,"date":"2026-09-01T13:47:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/?p=19551"},"modified":"2026-09-01T13:49:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:49:17","slug":"bereavement-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blreview.org\/nonfiction\/bereavement-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Bereavement and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Issue<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Bereavement and Beyond<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

by Joan Kip<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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nonfiction<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not night when<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do see your face<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer-Night\u2019s Dream<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

It\u2019s now eighteen months since Art died, and while he continues to inhabit the depths of my house, that place where our souls meet, the upper stories still feel his absence. Existing within two overlapping levels, two distinct wavelengths, I float untethered between his reality and mine. While in his reality, I feel we are joined in communion and I\u2019m back living a remembered sublimity. But within my own reality, that of the temporal with its day-to-day practicalities of taking care of the house, the garden, the finances, there are moments when I am overwhelmed with a recurring sense of desolation, the aloneness of a solo performer.

Before I was widowed, I facilitated bereavement groups and I remember pronouncing to the grieving members\u2014with the comfortable conviction of the uninitiated\u2014that our most abiding relationships never leave us, that we simply internalize them much as we internalize our parents. We hear their voices, see their faces, may even sense their hands in ours. They are impressions we cannot erase. Now, as I wander the house Art and I shared for forty years, the house in which we raised our children, I wonder if I could still make such a pronouncement.

My job, I tell myself, is to recognize the different wavelengths within which I exist, knowing that while I\u2019m in my practical mode, there is another deeper wavelength that I see with my inner eye. It is there, while meditating in the quiet of my room, that I meet my internalized \u201cother\u201d within an alliance fashioned beyond time. Endowed with a questing imagination, if I can free my mind from its usual constraints and enlarge my conditioned perception of but one reality, I am able to find that other realm: the realm in which Art is with me, touching my face with his hand, hugging me when I return from the store, holding me close as we fall asleep.

Each morning I step back and observe myself in my new life as a widow. I carry on with my usual exercise routine of dancing to Reggae or to Scott Joplin\u2014oiling the bearings, loosening the joints. It is a routine that comforts me, enabling me to move threatening sadness to a lighter level. Times past, Art would remain in bed, watching me, relieved that he wasn\u2019t as compulsive as I. Some mornings, I sense that Art is still in that bed watching me, and when I have finished dancing, we stay with each other for a while, connecting with intention across our two realities.

Recently, however, I began to feel as if an unseen enemy was unraveling my slim defenses, a throwback to those early days just after Art died. I realized that I\u2019d been thinking about him less often, had written him fewer letters. Sometimes an hour or two passed when I didn\u2019t think about him at all, didn\u2019t see his bearded face or hear his resonant voice. Later that morning, washing dishes, I looked out the window onto the garden Art had made, and had a vision of him there in his old gardening slacks and even older white shirt. I realized then that my panic was about my fear of losing him, of letting him go. Were I to relax my passionate concentration on Art, might he slip out of my life and fade away like a forgotten photograph, blurred and lifeless, a darkened shadow of the original?

In my day-to-day existence, time imposes its own reality and I know that no matter how much I try to cling to Art, his image will ultimately blur and gradually diminish. Sometimes, as I lunch with friends or attend a concert, my tears are forgotten for a magic moment, and I am hugged by my old happiness. But the curtain falls, the lights go on, and then, driving home alone, I\u2019m back clinging to the sad, empty space alongside me. Eventually, after hours, days, weeks, I remember what I\u2019ve always known: my love for Art lives in my heart, unchanged, unchangeable. 

I don\u2019t believe that bereavement is a straight path to a beckoning shore. Rather, it is a capricious zig-zagging journey, one with Sisyphian overtones. And as I move along this unfamiliar rocky path, feeling more centered\u2014time and again I find myself jerked back to my earliest grief: the grief I thought I had \u201cdealt with.\u201d 

It happens whenever I find myself staring at an elderly couple holding hands, whenever I hear a certain piece of music or look at a particular photograph. It happens when I touch Art\u2019s watch, his worn-out wallet, his keys\u2014so much of him still around the house, waiting to capture my attention. Museum pieces from our youth together through our old age, his possessions conspire to catch me off guard and, for a while, I land right back on square one. At this point I have found the best thing\u2014perhaps the only thing\u2014to do is to shake hands with grief, as I would with an old respected friend, then turn around and walk right back to the present. For I can never go back entirely to that which has left me, that which I have left.

I am thinking that there should be a Catechism According to the Bereaved, some gentle-bound truths to counter the many mistaken notions about bereavement, both for those living with their bereavement and for the still apprehensive observers.

One of these notions is that after one year, we are presumed to be all mourned out. People, kind friends even, will imply that one is now ready to close the door on sorrow and resume a life unattended by grief and by tears. I am sure they mean well; it\u2019s just that they are entirely mistaken. It is true that time softens the initial blow, but I don\u2019t think I could ever completely seal up that door\u2014and perhaps I shouldn\u2019t\u2014for the act of mourning inspires my healing and incubates my sorrow, allowing for its gradual transformation.

Maybe tears are a natural antidote to the anguish of an otherwise inexpressible grief. In the early days, I would not weep. But my body would soon shake from the withholding and eventually break down. Occasionally there are still mornings when I wake up from a night\u2019s sleep with a deep sense of heaviness and restraint, and I know this feeling to be one of tears struggling to escape. One of my musings is that we humans are born with an endless reservoir of tears and joy\u2014complementary twins\u2014into which we dip or plunge, as the occasion arises, and that when I am with one, the other is not far away.

Another mistaken notion is that once a person has died, he or she has become an unmentionable, someone to be dropped from the roster, wiped off the slate and filed under Departed. To give voice to their name is somehow to commit an indelicate social blunder. Shortly after Art died, I was invited to a dinner party and decided to face this baptism by fire\u2014my first time out alone. I hardly knew the other guests around the table, but they had known Art for many years as his colleagues. The evening passed slowly, the conversation distant from my interests, but I hoped to be an attentive guest. I was surprised, however, that no one mentioned Art\u2019s recent death or offered me a word of sympathy. After a while, I brought Art\u2019s name into the conversation, which resulted in an uneasy silence and a swift move to another subject. Later, and somewhat belligerently, I again offered up Art\u2019s name, and again the same uneasy silence followed. I left that dinner early and am sure the other guests must have been relieved. I don\u2019t fault them for what I assume to be their own fears of mortality, but it made me realize how tender our culture is, how fearful of death so many of us are. And how needy we bereaved can be in the early months of our loss.

There are also those godsent others: friends, acquaintances, even strangers who, by a miracle of innate empathy, manage to convey a compassion that warms my coldest parts. I am ever grateful when I am asked directly how I am doing. Facing someone\u2019s avoidance only denigrates my sadness, as though all those yesterdays with Art had never happened.

Events tend to happen in clusters and death is no exception. Around the time of Art\u2019s death, many of my closest friends were also dealing with the loss of partners; vigorous people suddenly faded and died. It felt as though some kind of hex had descended upon us all. In the mutuality of our grief, we sad ones rallied around each other and supported each other as we fled into the solace of feverish domesticity: one old friend remodeled her entire living area, another added a large studio onto her house. After Art\u2019s death, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, I had every room in my house repainted in bright colors. It was an audacious act, tinged with guilt, as if I was celebrating a too early thaw, yet it yielded a momentary liberation from the darkness of grief.

In some ways, grieving the loss of Art has cut through my emotional complexities, opening me to the core so that, in all manner of things, I feel a new freedom. Shortly after Art died, a physicist friend of his visited from England. John and I share a deep friendship and he asked me if I had ever written about my feeling of being loved by loving. It\u2019s a question that has stuck in my mind. But the more I ponder, the less clear is my thinking\u2014shades of the chicken-and-egg enigma cloud my thinking. Is my feeling of being loved by Art dependent on my first having loved him? Is it possible to love without the assurance of having been loved? It\u2019s a philosophical roundabout which confuses my mind.

Yet my heart seems to understand. I have an abiding sense of Art\u2019s love moving through my sorrow and comforting my soul. And alongside his love for me is my own expansive love for him, as we move in concert with one another across the illusion of separateness, embraced within a spiral of light, which has no beginning, no end. The world assumes a softer glow now\u2014my corners having weathered into roundness; I\u2019ve lost much of my former sharpness, and I don\u2019t think it has anything to do with the possible lassitude of old age. It has more to do with love becoming visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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More from Issue 3<\/span><\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
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table of contents <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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purchase issue<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n
Issue 3<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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