I've failed at everything but death.

In the end I'll have failed.

I anticipate, embrace, and welcome death.

As a child, my mother used to tell me to make the most out of life. She would always say that I had the power to make my dreams a reality. I wish she had taken her own advice before it was too late. It was a clear cool fall morning and the wind was whistling through the maple trees behind my shabby apartment building. Standing on the tattered wooden balcony, I took in the fresh air and closed my eyes. Autumn has always reminded me of my mother’s rhubarb, crisp fall leaves, and death. I though...

The scarlet sun sets just behind the lighthouse on Farallon Island a few miles north of Monterey. Seagulls glide gracefully along the water as I take in the mild California air. Ever since my daughter’s death last year, I have been coming here by myself. I like to pretend that she is still out there, playing in the tide and flying her kite and laughing. But no matter what I do nothing can change the fact that I am alone. I can’t quite remember anymore what Sarah looks like. When I close my ey...

My father always used to say, “In love, one and one are one.” And when I would ask him what that meant he would simply answer, “Someday you will know, Sweetheart.” I haven’t heard those words in some time. Today, that saying plays in my head over and over again as I walk along the icy shores of the North Sea. A light rain patters off my forehead but I am numb to it, wrecked inside by the impending void that crashes in with each salty wave. I keep thinking of my father when he was healthy, how...