Instructions for My Mother's Funeral

Instructions for My Mother's Funeral PDF Author: Laura E. Read
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082297844X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
This collection is divided into three sections. The first opens with the speaker's reflections on her childhood loss of her father and subsequent move to a new house and a new life, a life in which she is always alert to the absences and danger but also a life in which she begins to see language as a kind of salvation. This section also develops the speaker's first knowledge of sex, primarily in the poems, "The Goose Girl" and "A Woman Was Raped Here." The second section follows the speaker into adolescence and young adulthood, and these poems further explore the sexual violence in the world in which the speaker lives, and how this violence affects her own feelings toward sex and romantic love. In the third section, the book finds love, work, and family, and the poems in this section about motherhood echo back to the first section as the speaker's own parenting is influenced by how difficult it is to love when you know people die.

Instructions for My Mother's Funeral

Instructions for My Mother's Funeral PDF Author: Laura E. Read
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082297844X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 115

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection is divided into three sections. The first opens with the speaker's reflections on her childhood loss of her father and subsequent move to a new house and a new life, a life in which she is always alert to the absences and danger but also a life in which she begins to see language as a kind of salvation. This section also develops the speaker's first knowledge of sex, primarily in the poems, "The Goose Girl" and "A Woman Was Raped Here." The second section follows the speaker into adolescence and young adulthood, and these poems further explore the sexual violence in the world in which the speaker lives, and how this violence affects her own feelings toward sex and romantic love. In the third section, the book finds love, work, and family, and the poems in this section about motherhood echo back to the first section as the speaker's own parenting is influenced by how difficult it is to love when you know people die.

Instructions for a Funeral

Instructions for a Funeral PDF Author: David Means
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374279810
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
"Poetic, insightful, and deeply moving. David Means is one of my very favorite writers." —Tara Westover, author of Educated Following the publication of his widely acclaimed, Man Booker-nominated novel Hystopia, David Means here returns to his signature form: the short story. Thanks to his four previous story collections, Means has won himself an international reputation as one of the most innovative short fiction writers working today: an “established master of the form.” (Laura Miller, The Guardian). Instructions for a Funeral—featuring work from The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, and VICE—finds Means branching out beyond the explorations of violence and trauma with which he is often identified, prominently displaying his sly humor and his inimitable way of telling tales that deliciously wind up to punch the reader in the heart. With each story Means pushes into new territory, writing with tenderness and compassion about fatherhood, marriage, a homeless brother, the nature of addiction, and the death of a friend at the hands of a serial-killer nurse. Means transmutes a fistfight in Sacramento into a tender, life-long love story; two FBI agents on a stakeout in the 1920s into a tale of predator and prey, paternal urges and loss; a man’s funeral instructions into a chronicle of organized crime, real estate ventures, and the destructive force of paranoia. Means’s work has earned him comparisons to Flannery O’Connor, Alice Munro, Sherwood Anderson, Denis Johnson, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver but his place in the American literary landscape is fully and originally his own. "David Means is a master of tense, distilled, quintessentially American prose. Like any artist who has finely honed his talent to its strongest expression he is a brilliant craftsman whose achievement is to appear unstudied, even casual . . . Each story by Means which I have read is unlike the others, unexpected and an unnerving delight." —Joyce Carol Oates

The Home Book of Pleasure and Instruction

The Home Book of Pleasure and Instruction PDF Author: Laura Valentine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Amusements
Languages : en
Pages : 630

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Book Description


My Mother's Way of Dying Well

My Mother's Way of Dying Well PDF Author: Dianne Porter
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1483626458
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
The unexpected collection of my parent’s ashes from the crematorium opened the door to a new adventure in dealing my parents death that I personally found very liberating for my soul. It marked the beginning of a personal pilgrimage of faith I had no intention of taking, I thought I was dealing with my parents remains. As time passed I realized I had no choice but to take this path – this journey was the only way forward for me. Surprisingly for me it actually strengthened my faith in God and his ways as taught in the Christian faith and it’s hard to describe how. Once I committed myself to the task I had to take action. I plunged my hands into their ashes that first day even though for me it was like plunging my hands into my parent’s dead bodies. It was irksome and revolting to me the first time.

Modern Loss

Modern Loss PDF Author: Rebecca Soffer
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006249922X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Inspired by the website that the New York Times hailed as "redefining mourning," this book is a fresh and irreverent examination into navigating grief and resilience in the age of social media, offering comfort and community for coping with the mess of loss through candid original essays from a variety of voices, accompanied by gorgeous two-color illustrations and wry infographics. At a time when we mourn public figures and national tragedies with hashtags, where intimate posts about loss go viral and we receive automated birthday reminders for dead friends, it’s clear we are navigating new terrain without a road map. Let’s face it: most of us have always had a difficult time talking about death and sharing our grief. We’re awkward and uncertain; we avoid, ignore, or even deny feelings of sadness; we offer platitudes; we send sympathy bouquets whittled out of fruit. Enter Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner, who can help us do better. Each having lost parents as young adults, they co-founded Modern Loss, responding to a need to change the dialogue around the messy experience of grief. Now, in this wise and often funny book, they offer the insights of the Modern Loss community to help us cry, laugh, grieve, identify, and—above all—empathize. Soffer and Birkner, along with forty guest contributors including Lucy Kalanithi, singer Amanda Palmer, and CNN’s Brian Stelter, reveal their own stories on a wide range of topics including triggers, sex, secrets, and inheritance. Accompanied by beautiful hand-drawn illustrations and witty "how to" cartoons, each contribution provides a unique perspective on loss as well as a remarkable life-affirming message. Brutally honest and inspiring, Modern Loss invites us to talk intimately and humorously about grief, helping us confront the humanity (and mortality) we all share. Beginners welcome.

Scenes of Instruction

Scenes of Instruction PDF Author: Michael Awkward
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822324027
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A work of personal criticism by a leading Black male literary critic, combining memoir with readings of African American fiction.

Last Writes

Last Writes PDF Author: Rebecca Zwitser
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781073588794
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
We wrote this outline so you can write your story. It is difficult for many people to discuss the logistics associated with dying. It is sometimes challenging for people to articulate thoughts and memories which have defined their life. The sheer overwhelming nature of grief can make it hard for those left behind to navigate the aftermath of a loved one passing on. This book has been designed to facilitate people being able to clearly set out what should happen after they die. And what they think about life. And anything else they happen to want to say.The sections include: The immediate aftermath; My life and legacy; Treasured memories, Thanks and Things; Nuts and bolts; Notes, quotes and thoughts.The purpose of the book is to prompt people to leave a blueprint for their relatives. But it does more than that. It invites each writer to share with people who will have access to the book, additional insights into their life. Those who were loved, reflections on achievements and challenges, and observations on issues of consequence and importance. The book can be as detailed or as broad as the writer dictates. It can be as intimate or general as suits its author. It can be as serious or funny according to the personality of the individual in control of this intimate literary journey.This book is not a legal document and doesn't take the place of a will.

Strings Attached

Strings Attached PDF Author: Joanne Lipman
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401304982
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
THE FINE ART OF TOUGH LOVE. If you're lucky, somewhere in your past is that one person who changed your life forever. The one who pushed you to dream bigger and to reach higher, and who set you straight on what matters in life. Perhaps it was a coach, or a professor, or a family friend. For Joanne Lipman and Melanie Kupchynsky, that person was a public-school music teacher, Jerry Kupchynsky, known as Mr. K--a Ukrainian-born taskmaster who yelled and stomped and screamed, and who drove his students harder than anyone had ever driven them before. Through sheer force of will, he made them better than they had any right to be. Strings Attached tells the inspiring, poignant, and powerful story of this remarkable man, whose life seemed to conspire against him at every turn and yet who was able to transform his own heartache into triumph for his students. Lyrically recounted by two former students -- acclaimed journalist Joanne Lipman and Mr. K's daughter, Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Melanie Kupchynsky -- Strings Attached takes you on a journey that spans from his days as a forced Nazi laborer and his later home life as a husband to an invalid wife, to his heart-breaking search for his missing daughter, Melanie's sister. This is an unforgettable tale -- a captivating narrative that is as absorbing as fiction -- about the power of a great teacher, but also about the legacy that remains long after the last note has faded into silence: lessons in resilience, excellence, and tough love. Strings Attached is for anyone indebted to a mentor and for those devoted to igniting excellence in others.

My Mother's Rules

My Mother's Rules PDF Author: Lynn Toler
Publisher: Agate Publishing
ISBN: 1572846186
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
In this unique, profoundly inspirational memoir, Divorce Court star Judge Lynn Toler shares her mother’s wisdom for learning to conquer anger and become immune to insult. Toler credits her mother’s “rules” for life – a life that saw her grow up the daughter of a poor teen mother and endure a husband who suffered mental illness and alcoholism – with providing the grounding for her own success and happiness. Toler shows how the mindset of “a black woman who knew how to make things work” taught her the power of knowing how to manage one’s emotional business—lessons that this book offers in wrenching stories written in spare and graceful prose. My Mother’s Rules is an unforgettable book that will captivate readers with its illustrations of how to rise above the most difficult circumstances and find peace and success in life.

Walk Her Up the Stairs

Walk Her Up the Stairs PDF Author: Loretta Fox
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
ISBN: 1035821192
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
When her mother received a terminal hospice diagnosis just two weeks before their planned move to a new house, far from familiar surroundings, Loretta Fox was unprepared for the challenges ahead. Balancing the demands of around-the-clock care for her difficult yet sweet mother with the upheaval of an out-of-state move, Loretta also had to set up a home that could accommodate everyone’s needs, including their emotional baggage. Walk Her Up the Stairs is a memoir interwoven with poetry written during the author’s time caring for her dying mother. It gives voice to the complex and often unspoken emotions experienced by many caregivers. This candid and touching account reflects on the tumultuous yet ultimately bonding journey between mother and daughter. Through her caregiving, Loretta discovers an unexpected skill in Spirit Mediumship, which becomes a source of profound healing. The memoir explores Spirit Mediumship with clear descriptions and includes basics on both receiving and giving Spirit Readings. With a background as a former hospice worker, a master’s degree in Religious Studies, and as a practicing Spirit Medium, Loretta Fox offers a unique perspective. Her story aims to inspire fellow caregivers, comfort those grieving, intrigue individuals curious about Spirit Mediumship, and resonate with anyone who has navigated a challenging mother-child relationship.