Katherine
Mahon
Holmes
writes

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

This morning felt lighter. The memoir, finally done. Off my hands, off my mind, and out in the world, no longer mine. Something written, worked on, and tweaked for the last six years—sometimes setting it aside for months when I couldn’t find the arc, and sometimes just tired of my own writing... Waking up at 4 am like always—when it’s still dark and peaceful. Quiet. Nothing had changed, really. The coffee was the same. The light of day hadn’t come in yet. The house held that

“Ha! #47. That was a good one,” we’d laugh. That is one of the jokes my siblings and I throw out when we surround a kitchen island, sharing stories. We loved and still do, telling and listening to our repeated funny stories, especially if a newcomer enters the circle. But if it were just us, we’d joke we’d only have to say a number, like 47, as if we all knew what story it was and would all chuckle. Yesterday, I checked in by text with an old friend I had not spoken with in