Between sobs, you bargain for a stranger’s life that’s already been lost. You consider ways to reverse it. A solo resurrection think tank. You’re 7 and saying things that are just… beyond what one expects or is ready for. From anyone, but especially you. My daughter usually dwells on Minecraft…

On my eldest daughter’s first day of kindergarten, a column of smoke that seems to reach 10,000 feet high dances on the horizon with an imprecise cruelty. I watch it as I shovel clothes and important documents — whatever the hell you’re supposed to grab first if a fire is…

“I don’t belong here,” I think when I see the half marathon starting line. It’s an inflatable arch that spans the main thoroughfare of a Talent, Oregon apartment complex, like a luxury children’s birthday party decoration that Tetris’d out of the dawn sky and went bowlegged over a narrow residential…

She’ll be here in five minutes, and the rose you bought for her is MIA. This wasn’t a concern two minutes ago. You were fresh off a shower then, paper-dolled in just-ironed slacks and a button up shirt and a Clark Kent tie (sky blue with cheery red stripes.) …

A couple days before my 2011 wedding, I stayed up late at my apartment talking with my brother, a common side effect of pertinent life moments and family reunions. We dug deep and revisited the past. There were pleasant recollections, plenty to laugh about, but the depth of our talk…