I thought finishing the book would feel like relief. It did. But not in the way I expected. My editor kept saying, “You’ll know when it’s done.” I kept thinking, That feels wildly optimistic for someone who has never done this before. She was calm about it. Certain. Like, this was all very normal. write a novel, get an agent, casually end up in a bookstore. I know healthcare systems. I do not know publishing. So when I typed “The End,” I had absolutely no idea what I had jus

My mother was a woman of quiet, ferocious dignity. After my father died, something in her left too. What followed wasn't grief in the ordinary sense. It was a five-year unraveling I could document clinically and could not stop personally. I was a nurse. I thought I knew death. I did not know this. Read the full essay →