I was 13 when my father was killed right before my eyes. Two weeks later, while everyone in our small town obsessed over his grisly death, I embarked on a new horror: 8th grade.
This searing story will stick in my memory until I am gone. I cried for that little girl, later grown, but still carrying the hurt, the shame, the otherness on into her own motherhood.
It is also a lesson to look for the people who need everything, when all you can give them is attention and an intense listen. These are the people we need to help, not move on and let them deal or not deal with unimaginable issues they pretend are not within. This story deserved the Grand Memoir Prize and will be my favorite forever.
Laura Green-Russell, you are amazing. You poured out the truth like I've never seen before. This story is going to touch so many lives, people like you, carrying secrets, posing as normal, when they are being eaten alive inside by what happened to them as a child. There are many of us out there. I hope letting it out was cathartic and healing.
This searing story will stick in my memory until I am gone. I cried for that little girl, later grown, but still carrying the hurt, the shame, the otherness on into her own motherhood.
It is also a lesson to look for the people who need everything, when all you can give them is attention and an intense listen. These are the people we need to help, not move on and let them deal or not deal with unimaginable issues they pretend are not within. This story deserved the Grand Memoir Prize and will be my favorite forever.
Laura Green-Russell, you are amazing. You poured out the truth like I've never seen before. This story is going to touch so many lives, people like you, carrying secrets, posing as normal, when they are being eaten alive inside by what happened to them as a child. There are many of us out there. I hope letting it out was cathartic and healing.
I was mesmerized until the last word.