Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Pluto Opposes the Sun by Patricia Fox hen I lived in Los Angeles for a few years, I had a meditation instructor who asked me when I was 38 how many years I had been in chronic pain. “On and off since I was fourteen or fifteen,” I responded. It was a question I would think a lot about in the next couple of years. I ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Happy Thoughts by Rosa Jordan y daughter is screaming. Again. Not exactly every hour on the hour, but more or less. Sometimes seventy minutes go by. Sometimes only fifty. Her husband and I lift her from the bed onto her feet. The scream turns to moans, then a groan, until the agonizing leg cramps subside and she mumbles, “Thank you.” We help her lie back ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Cadence of Life by Carole Hemmelgarn ne two, one two, the cadence of a runner’s stride. Inhale in, exhale out, pushing the lungs for air. I know the birds are chirping, leaves rustling, and wind blowing, but all I hear is the cacophony of screaming silence in my head. Pain is there every time my foot strikes the gravel, but I am numb. I no ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Nothing by Mouth: Living Without a Pancreas by Shirley Phillips have a well-worn card in my wallet. On one side, there is a bulleted list. The first item says, “I have no pancreas.” This is the story of how I came to be without a pancreas, but it’s also a lesson about why I need a card to prove it. Unlike a medical-alert bracelet, which is ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Searching for Answers by Annette Roy Davis ne morning, I put my finger under my daughter’s nose to ensure she was breathing. Her face contorted in pain even as she slept, I felt terrified I’d lost her. I had to head to work and leave her like that. I had no choice, no money for care, and no more sick leave. Put a roof over ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 A Mother’s Dilemma by Mary Chris Bailey There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.—Washington Irving everal days after our youngest son Bryan’s surgery, the hospital offered us the opportunity to bring his brothers, Donovan and Sean, in to see him. I thought it was because no one was sure ...

Nonfiction Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 The/rapist by Angela Sells ey, here’s someone from Pacifica, too,” my boyfriend, Will, noted, leafing through a pamphlet of upcoming speakers invited to the Seattle Jung Society. We were sitting in the back of a Victorian-era dining room that had been converted into a classroom at seven p.m. on a Saturday night. During a whirlwind weekend in December, I was invited to speak about my dissertation ...