(Today Modern Loss published the following piece by me. If you don’t know Modern Loss, you’ll want to – it’s breaking ground in terms of bringing the topic of loss out into the open.)
“I want you to know that I’ve been smoking pot,” Dad said on my first visit home from college. It was October 2002.
“Are we going to smoke together?” I said, excited at the prospect.
He pressed his lips up toward his nose and made his thinking face, and then started to nod.
“I would be willing to share my pot with you,” he said. I felt a little thrill: I was going to be the cool kid who smoked pot with her Dad.
That night Dad packed his little wooden pipe and lit it with a match …
“The force that had swept me up stopped suddenly and dropped me in a forest clearing. It was dark but there was a light shining in the center.” / Photo by Andreas Overland