Other Losses

Missing the Goodbye

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For immigrant families like mine, loss can mean mourning from a great distance.

Meet the Widex

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Eight years after we divorced, my sons’ father was dead — and I went from the ex to something more complicated.

Was My Dead Ex Talking to Me From Inside the TV?

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Was my dead ex talking to me from inside the TV?

Meet Patricia, Aunt Esther’s Amazon Alter Ego

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It was only after my aunt's death that I really got to know her -- through hundreds of Amazon.com product reviews.

Jeff Schmaltz newsroom

The Long Arc of My Mentor’s Impact

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Jeff Schmalz was my advocate in the newsroom — and the first openly gay man I knew. Even years after his death, his influence on my life takes on new forms.

David Carr’s ‘Lasting Totem’

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The writer David Carr thought of me like a son. When he died, he left me with a trove of fatherly wisdom, courtesy of Gmail.

Hard Time

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Uncle Billy, the father figure in my life, came back from prison broken and distant. And before long, he was dead — leaving me to wrestle with his complicated legacy.

When Your New Home Has a Sad History

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When you buy a home, you want to imagine yourself living there — not the former owner dying there.

Land of Enchantment

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After my ex-boyfriend's death, would returning to our New Mexico — where we had shared a life — unleash my grief?

Close to Death

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I had just given birth to my third child and was training for a half-marathon when I had a heart attack. And as I lay in my hospital bed, I could hear the woman in the next room dying.

What I Mourn When I Mourn Robin Williams

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What Gen Xers mourn when we mourn Robin Williams.

Robin Williams: His ‘Little Spark’ Gave Off So Much Light

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For comic genius Robin Williams — dead in an apparent suicide — there was ultimately no reprieve from the darkness.

Philip Seymour Hoffman: A Man We All Knew (But Didn’t)

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In the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman's demise, let's not make a sport out of dredging up the details of his final moments.

Mourning Tina, the Nanny Who Raised Me

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When strangers ask me if my necklace is a family heirloom, the answer is not so easy as yes or no.