It's the truth. by Vicky Brago-Mitchell

I miss dead people. I miss my parents, even though they raised me before the discovery of self-esteem and never missed an opportunity to make me feel deeply defective. (Nothing personal really, just 19th century German child-rearing.)

I miss dogs and cats.

An unfortunate creature named Chelsea, whom we adopted when she was about ten years old, long imprinted with the conviction that she was her own only friend.

I miss Matthew, a cat inclined to morbid obesity, whose final resting place was desecrated by a famous attorney who must remain nameless. (I mean unnamed. Anybody with rudimentary Googling skills can figure out who I’m talking about.)

I miss…Dony Bronston, who taught me to play the piano correctly, rather than telling me she’d like to break my wrists. (She was the first wife of Samuel Bronston, producer of epics like The Fall of the Roman Empire. He left her for a younger woman.)

I miss….this is a time to stop.

My college English professor once said to our class that when you’re not sure what to write next, the best thing to do is stop. (He also wrote in his memoirs that he considered teaching an erotic act, which according to my therapist makes him a perpetrator of sexual abuse.)

I don’t miss him. I wish him ignominy, I wish him remembered by nobody. Still, there was that one piece of good advice.