*Disappointment, Please.

“We’ll be OK Mum, you can go, we’ll all take care of each other,” my sister and I sobbed. We repeated this nonsense to her over and over and over. Could she sense we were lying? In death, surely one gets closer to the spirit world and can finally see through bullshit lies being told, I thought. I didn’t agree with our promises at all, especially knowing the state of cold separation our family had retained for years apart from the past few months when we were forced to come together and care. My dream of being a close, caring family had finally come true, but under these set of circumstances I’d gladly take the disappointment I had come to know so well. I hoped we would take care of each other, that the family environment we’d built the past few months would remain—that I could continue hosting family nights with dinner and board games—but it wouldn’t be the same without her infectious laugh, her charismatic draw, and her special set of dysfunctions she unapologetically brought to the table.

Excerpt from chapter one | wild horses | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir