Inspired by an email from Susan Bono:
I was at Dollar Tree the other day and didn’t have quite enough cash to cover my Halloween garlands.
As I fumbled with my card, the cashier said, “I never carry cash anymore.”
I said, “I don’t either, but I miss it sometimes.”
She looked at me full in the face and said, “There are things I miss every single day about the way things used to be.”
I saw such grief in her face before she smiled and urged me to have a nice day.
Prompt: Write whatever comes up for you . . .
Shopping at the Dollar Tree store
Halloween
Cash vs credit card
I miss . . .
The way things used to be . . .
The thing about grief is . . .
Susan Bono is the author of “What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home.” Available on Amazon.
“The world is full of stories. Mine collect in journals, spill onto postcards and scraps of paper, come to conclusions in computer files, call to me in dreams. I write what I believe is true about my experiences, not just events that happened to me.
I’m not sure what’s more important: the raw aliveness of a dashed-off journal entry or the carefully developed and edited essay, finally (one hopes) complete. I only know that every story is a shard of mirror that shows me pieces of who I am and what it means to be human.” —Susan Bono
