It’s My Birthday!

I sometimes wish I’d been an adult when my mom was in her 30s and 40s—that I could have been her best friend instead of her daughter. I look at her pictures back then, and I see this gorgeous, sexy, vibrant woman—a part of her I never had the privilege of knowing. She was so many people, and I only knew a fraction of her.

Family Matters

Dear Diary, As most of you know, I lost my beloved mom two years ago. A year after that, I lost my only sister. And three months after saying goodbye to my sister, I lost the job I loved—the one I thought would be mine until I retired. Loss is funny, and so is grief. […]

Comfort Food

Dear Diary, Carrie was always known as the cook of the family. She loved being in the kitchen, experimenting with new recipes and flavors. I loved being in the kitchen, too, but that’s because I adored eating the food. Carrie was the cook, and I was her willing, taste-testing guinea pig. Before she died, I […]

Gratitude

Dear Diary, I’ve been thinking about my big sister a lot lately. About her waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. About how she couldn’t find her way back to her bed because there was a tumor compromising her brain. About how that fucking tumor would take her away […]

Misty, Watercolor Memories

Someone asked me today how I was. It was a casual question from a casual acquaintance. The kind of question in which the one who’s asking expects a “Fine, thanks. How are you?” But that’s not what I said. Instead, I awkwardly blurted, “My mom just died.” “I’m so sorry. We all go through that. […]

Life Lessons from My Eight-Year-Old Self

Katrina's Childhood Memoir

The autobiography I penned at age eight begins with this: How it all started… When I was young I had some troubles. I had started to grow up to be a very spastic child. Every time I got mad I held my breath until I passed out. My mom was scared. It is a handwritten […]

The Time We Have

Katrina with Her Sister Carrie and their Mom

I’m feeling a sense of desperation tonight. There’s not enough time. I’ve wasted it. I’ve squandered it. I’ve let too much of it pass by. A dear friend of mine says, “The time we have is the time we have.” I know what she means by it. We get what we get. We cannot make […]

Seesters

She turns 49 today. That hardly seems possible. I still remember her sitting at the kitchen table in our Weston Village apartment, layering her blue eye shadow as she gazed into her Clairol multi-light mirror. Styx played in the background as she flipped her bangs with a large-barreled curling iron and meticulously applied her shiny, […]

Brown County Memories

Katrina's Family

On the heels of a most wonderful Thanksgiving family reunion in Brown County, Indiana, I’ve been thinking a great deal about my childhood, my family, my sister, my cousins (pictured here), my grandparents. We’re a unique clan, the Andersons. Our individual personalities are as vast and different as the leaves in our beloved Brown County […]

NO!

Kids at Abrams

One of my very favorite songs to listen to when the kids were younger was the catchy “They Might Be Giants” tune, “NO!” It opens with this: “No is no. No is always no. If they say no, it means a thousand times no.” Pretty good preparation for life, methinks. We face a lot of […]