Two Women Walk into a Bar

She was as unreachable in this mysterious borderline place as any of us were. Death was her journey alone to take.

“But there’s a spiritual component to dying. To some degree, people need to release whatever’s holding them here before they can make the transition.”

Intellectually, I knew her criticisms of my body said more about her than they did about me; I knew they reflected the wider cultural values we’d both been steeped in all our lives that equated thinness with female beauty and, indeed, value. But they cut me to the core anyway. They heightened my sense of loss and longing for my mom, which was parti

“You know I don’t believe that two women can live in the same house, Cheryl,” Joan said after she composed herself. “I’ve always told you that. It creates too much conflict.” I nodded. I did know.