Labor Day

You guys: I GOT HONORABLE MENTION in this writing contest! #12 out of thousands of submittals! WOW!

In October 2021, I entered the 250-word Microfiction Challenge sponsored by New York City Midnight. It was a fantastically fun experience--thousands entered--and get this: I got honorable mention! Just found out today (Dec 16)! 

I was selected as #12 out of thousands of entries. I'm thrilled, proud, and inspired to continue writing more! I definitely didn't think I'd even get this far. This is the end for me, for this challenge. I didn't win any money, and I don't "move on to the next bracket." 

BUT this was a game-changer for this writer, reminding me that I am a good writer and that I should KEEP GOING and continue writing down my life, sharing my stories, baring my creative soul. ;)

 I was assigned the category of drama (how perfect; too bad there wasn't a category called melodrama b/c I'd be all over that). I had to use the phrase/action of "circling a date on a calendar" at least once. It could only be 250 words. I was given the prompt at 8 pm and had until midnight to write it and submit it. Top prize was $6,500! They award prizes to the top 10. I got #12. Oh, well. 

BIG VICTORY for this writer. I am on cloud nine! 

And now, here's the story I wrote that, in my world, "won." See my endnote after the story. I don't want to tell you until after you read the story (but you'll probably figure it out anyway).

Alternative Title: Still, Born

(I couldn't decide so I went with "Labor Day"!)

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Labor Day 

Like, HONESTLY? Nora thought, souring at the memory as she circled the date on the calendar.

August 31.

Labor Day?

THAT had to be the day she delivered her stillborn son? She let fly a few cuss words. Capped the marker and tossed it on the table.

Memories came tumbling at her like they always did. Fast. Unforgiving.

Years of infertility then SHAZAM the IVF works then SHAZAM her water breaks too early and it lands her in the freaking mother-baby ward for a week listening to the happy coos of new families while she lays there sobbing, begging the universe to save her baby then SHAZAM baby comes too soon and too small, still as the water on a windless lake.

Stillborn.

But still, he was born. That is worthy of remembering.

In the cruel first light of Labor Day, she and Mike held little Chris, already gone, as they said hello and good-bye in a single breath. Then, they had to sit there while that cocksucker of an Irish-brogue-talking priest “counseled” them: “This is God’s will; He never meant for your baby to live.”
Um. Okay.

Nora thinks of Chris every day. Her son Malcolm knows he has a big brother.

Those 2 would have made quite the pair.

Every year, on this pathetically ironic day, they honor Chris. They circle the date, celebrate his life.

And she silently tries to forget, even while she desperately wants to remember. It’s so confusing.

“LABOR Day,” she sputtered. “Right.”

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ENDNOTE: Yes, although this is crafted as "fiction" this story IS about me. Nora is me [named myself after my great-grandmother who I'm currently writing some creative nonfiction about]. Mike is my husband Jeff [named after the real Nora's husband, Michael Durkin, who I'm also writing a book about]. Chris is my stillborn child, Christopher, forever in my heart. And Malcolm is of course my amazing son Matthew.

Breaking Branches and Chasing Beautiful Things

I spent today breaking up branches and chasing beautiful things.

It's been a day. 

I felt the need to be outside a LOT today. So Matthew and I took the dog for a walk, and then we came back and I stayed outside. It was bright and sunny, but cold as can be. One of my very favorite kinds of days. Where the air is crisp, but you're glad to have your warm coat and comfy hat to make it bearable to be out there, witnessing God's beauty and enjoying Mother Nature's blessings.

I began breaking up the long sticks that I had placed into a huge pile weeks and weeks earlier. I had music playing on my phone as I broke up the sticks so that they could fit better into my Yard Waste bin and so that recycling would actually take it.

As I broke, stepped on, snapped in half, and (sometimes) cut with clippers these long, dead, thorny branches long ago sapped of life, I realized that I was beginning to enjoy myself. It was good to do something so physical with my hands that didn't involve the tap-tapping of my fingers on the keyboard or the clicking of my mouse. It felt good to be physically active and to be breaking these branches, these thorns that made me wear gardening gloves in order to protect my skin from scratches. It felt so cathartic to be reaching in and smooshing down all those branches. It felt great when I stepped inside the bin and firmly jumped on all those dead branches and thorns. It was a fully immersive experience in nothing but the present moment--and, these days, I've not been there much (the present). 

I've spent my days glued to the TV screen and the computer monitor and my phone, reading news article after news article that carefully picks apart what happened. 

I've spent my days transporting myself back to that awful day, a few days ago, on Wednesday, January 6, the day that rioters and insurrectionists (domestic terrorists)--bent on destroying our democracy and hurting, even murdering, people--descended upon our "bright shining city on the hill" and lawlessly and violently defaced the Capitol building that is our country's cherished treasure, a place that is the physical face and activity center of the very democracy that these terrorists tried unsuccessfully to destroy.

I began to think about the thorns and the sticks and the dead things I was breaking up. I likened the thorns to those crazy people who stormed our Capitol. I likened the dead branches to their cold, lifeless hearts who didn't care WHO they hurt as long as they got their message across.