A friend asks me to write down her story, and I agree. Readily.

Why? Don’t I have better things to do? Like writing down my own story?

But I agree because she is fairly young — and maybe her penmanship is bad, or maybe she hasn’t mastered the keyboard yet. I mean young. She doesn’t even know what age she is. It could be five, it could be twelve. She says it’s all a bit of a blur.

Sometimes there was someone holding her hand, and sometimes — she swears — there was no one there at all. Her memories fold in on mine, like pages of a diary stuck together by a squished bug.

I agree to interview her first, because that makes sense, right?

I mean, I know her story generally, but I’m guessing there’s a lot more I haven’t seen yet — and even if I do become aware of all the events, it may or may not be a story.

A story is always prescriptive or cautionary, and I’m not sure which hers is yet.

Do I want to end up like her?

I scratch my noggin. I don’t know — she seems to be in a pretty good headspace now.

She sits on a wicker chair, legs crossed like a real little lady, fingers plucking at a loose strand of rattan, eyes scanning a window that looks out on nothing but a blinding white lake.

But she’s hinted — I mean, she’s stated plainly — that things on the outside don’t match up to things on the inside.

So, the first question I ask is: Why do you not write your own story?

I’m expecting her to say all the usual stuff people say, like I’m not a writer; you’re better at writing than me; I just can’t seem to get started

But she surprises me. She says none of these things.

Instead, she whispers, her sibilants slipping slightly sideways, “Because I am you. You know exactly what to say.”

Each week I send out a little piece of writing. Sometimes it’s a personal essay and other times it’s a poem or piece of fiction. I hope you enjoy my scribblings. If the post prompts you to share something with me, by all means, hit reply to this email or leave a comment wherever you read this story. I’d love to hear from you.

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Haunted by war. Silenced by family. Desperate to be heard—at last.

After surviving the trenches of WWI, Fred Sadler expects peace, purpose, and a place in his family. Instead, plagued by anxiety and misunderstood by those closest to him, he slips further and further into the margins of life.

Now it’s 1986, and Fred is dead. But death doesn’t stop him from hovering at his own funeral, tethered to his bitter-tongued sister-in-law as she tells a version of his life he hardly recognizes. Watching, remembering, and bristling at Viola’s distortions, Fred aches for someone to understand the truth about him at last.

With a blend of poignancy and wry observation, Fred’s Funeral is a moving portrait of a forgotten life—and a reminder that even the most overlooked among us long to be remembered as we really were.

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