My wise younger self
I flew from Berlin to Vancouver after two years abroad. My mother, Roberta, instructed me to get my things from the attic. I sorted boxes of memories. Flipping through an old notebook, I discovered a message titled “Confessions,” written in italics on February 24, 2004, the eve of my 13th birthday: “I get so weird around girls and I think I’m lesbian. ” A sense of justification and love for my younger self washed over me. I thought I didn’t know I was gay until later. In reality, I had always known. † Deidre Olsen
what was gone
Naming a 10-week-old fetus was a bad idea. Two days after an ultrasound that revealed an empty gestational sac, I lay in a hospital bed, waiting for a surgeon to hasten the loss of what was already gone. I stared at the ceiling, gasping for breath. ‘Feel your feelings’, the world likes to evoke. OK, ready. My grief crushed me to a powder, but I didn’t blow away. I thought of my husband, home at that very moment, leaning over our 20-month-old daughter’s crib and whispering the names of everyone who loves her. I stayed whole. † Anne Manning
First time at home
It was my fifth trip to Ireland, but my first time in Connemara, the place my grandmother had left, an area known for its stories. I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to her stories, or maybe it wouldn’t. David, a cousin I hadn’t met before, raced around with me, rhyming dates and details, and coloring in our ancestral lines. He handed me a photo of his grandfather in Canada visiting my grandmother – as we stood together then. I held out in tears as David politely looked away. When I left, he hugged me and said, “Come back home soon.” † Casey Erin Wood
What’s in a name?
As a lifelong educator born with the last name Lerner, I joked with my students that I was destined to become a teacher. That role was what motivated me for decades, until I became a grandfather. I never had grandparents; they were killed in the Holocaust. Recently, during a video chat, in a time zone in the west, my grandson stared at his screen and asked, “Is it dark outside with you?” “Yes.” “Then how come it isn’t dark in here?” With that question, my roles of teacher and grandparent joyfully converged. † Jack Lerner