Category Archives: Death and dying

Birthdays Past

Posted on April 4, 2022 by allisongreenwriter

There’s something magical about our parents’ lives in the years just before and after we were born. Or maybe it’s only me that finds them magical. My parents met, fell in love, and made me. Out of nothing, something. Out … Continue reading →

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Dispatch from Seattle #2

Posted on May 24, 2020 by allisongreenwriter

In the picture on the box, several hundred colorful birds perch, fly, and hover on a white background. All have stick legs that look the same on the thousand tiny pieces spread across our dining room table. My spouse Arline … Continue reading →

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Apocalypse

Posted on December 27, 2018 by allisongreenwriter

“Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?” So begins N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, which appeared under our Christmas tree wrapped in cheerful, glittery paper. Arline gave me the boxed Broken Earth trilogy, knowing I’ve been … Continue reading →

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Anguish Time

Posted on July 28, 2016 by allisongreenwriter

In the Church of Saint Francis — Igreja de São Francisco — in Porto, Portugal, believers once dropped coins into alms boxes, whispered prayers, and hoped that someone was listening. These painted wooden boxes are now nailed to a wall … Continue reading →

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Love My City

Posted on March 18, 2016 by allisongreenwriter

Last night Seattle residents celebrated, remembered, and waxed poetic over the places we once loved that are now long gone. For me, it was Pizza and Pipes, a restaurant at 85th and Greenwood where organists rocked a huge Wurlitzer organ. … Continue reading →

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Conjuring Hurston

Posted on February 21, 2016 by allisongreenwriter

When loved ones die, we think of them, talk to them, ask their advice out loud and in our dreams. We conjure them, not only because we miss them, but because we need them. Alice Walker needed writer Zora Neale … Continue reading →

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Silent Tide

Posted on February 9, 2015 by allisongreenwriter

In the year after we moved into our building, we never met the reclusive white-haired woman down the hall, and then she was carried away on a stretcher and didn’t come back. Some months later, Arline offered to periodically check … Continue reading →

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December 31, 2014

Posted on December 31, 2014 by allisongreenwriter

1 Lucy diagnoses Charlie Brown’s seasonal depression as pantophobia, fear of everything. Wikipedia’s definition: “a vague and persistent dread of some unknown evil.” 2 A coworker my age died unexpectedly last month. What started as a cough turned out to … Continue reading →

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