Katherine
Mahon
Holmes
writes

Every morning, my early-rising friend texts me. Or I text her. We don’t plan it. We just both know one of us is awake before most normal people. If I had to be up at 4 a.m. to catch an early flight, I’d think that was so incredibly early—like most people do. I remember a seventh-grade history teacher—hauntingly tall, with overapplied makeup that made her look like a clown, the unsettling kind. She told us she got up at 4 a.m.—that just made her seem even weirder And now— My p

For a long time, I’ve been writing about what I’ve lost. Lately, I haven’t felt the pull to write about it— but nothing else has come. I wake up early, like I always do. Coffee in hand, I stand at the window. I see a single deer on the lawn, so calm, like the morning— and feel there’s a story there, I just don’t have the words. Grief—and the question when will this be over—felt like a splintered sign in a dusty old ghost town outside a deserted saloon, hanging loose, rattling

You don't always know what you'll need after someone dies. Sometimes, it's a place that holds you.