My grandma is dying, and I am having a hard time figuring out what to feel. My grandmother was narcissistic, selfish, and crotchety. She used to fuss over preparing food for; she acted like she was doing this great service to the family by feeding her grandchild. Then, she would serve me in these little
A Father’s passing: returning to Sloan-Kettering Last weekend, I walked into the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on the Upper East Side of New York City. At the lobby, a security guard asked if I knew where I was going. I said that I was visiting someone. I took an escalator, and then an elevator. The
Still Grieving After All These Years, OR, When Your Emotional Drain is Clogged I imagine your first thought, as a reader, is: “Wow Caitlin, that is a pretty terrible title. I thought you were supposed to be good at this writing thing?” Well, a) thank you for checking in… and b) I have selective writer’s
In the beginning of 2014, I started writing for AfterTalk about grieving for a father. I did it to appease a family friend. Back then, I think we had three people who wrote the blog posts on the site, and the other two were actively running it. Some of you didn’t know me then, and
Memories do not always appear conveniently. Often, you can’t find them during a therapeutic conversation. Shortly afterwards, you can find yourself thrust into a grief ridden flashback, in the middle of your busy day, and completely alone. Recently, I was reading a book for school on “the globalization of the American psyche.” I had just
