What Happens When a Parent’s Grief Goes Viral? by Alex Ronan, 30-minute read, Buzzfeed, free
Instagram lets users share the most photo-worthy aspects of their life, but how does social media expand to include grief? Buzzfeed contributor Alex Ronan looks at a very particular subset of the online community: mothers who have lost their children. She tracks the place where Jacqui Saldana’s Instagram feed abruptly changes from photos of her red-haired son Ryan to pictures of her mourning his unexpected death. “It’s an opportunity for catharsis in a society obsessed with moving forward,” writes Ronan. Their loss took on a strange celebrity, with followers creating hashtags, memorial T-shirts and even tattoos in Ryan’s honor. But past the online support, going viral has a darker side. With online exposure comes an influx of expectations, obligations and heightened scrutiny. As we share more and more online, the questions posed in this story become more pertinent. How does the very personal process of grief shift to fit the highly public world of social media, and vice versa?
Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane? by Kate Crane, 20-minute read, Ozy, free
Kate Crane’s father went missing from his workplace in 1987, leaving behind a series of grisly clues about his disappearance: poorly patched bullet holes, a bloody mop bucket, and an unsolved crime that would haunt his daughter for decades. Almost 20 years later, her ruthless obsession with the cold case begins to take over her life. She quits her job, leaves her partner and sets out to solve the crime herself. The story centers on the culmination of five years’ investigation, when she finally visits her dad’s old office — the place where he was almost certainly murdered. Set in the haunting industrial landscape of her hometown, the story centers on Crane’s grim obsession with finding the truth. Through it all, she begins “slowly piecing together what would become a murky vision of the crime but also of my dad himself.” Behind the violent details of her father’s absence, the story traces a gentler transition: in the midst of years-long grief, the acceptance that some things always go unsolved.
Rooster Stories by Anna Mitchael, 60-minute read, Kindle Single, $1.99
Anna Mitchael was a city girl. Then she fell in love with a man who preferred country life and learned the surprises life can throw. “It rolled me — like a lumbering, oversized, out-of-place bowling ball—toward a home on the end of a gravel-lined country road that’s roughly a mile and a half long,” she writes. Marriage, motherhood and chicken ownership are all chronicled with similar wit. She traces the years through successive roosters (each named Kenny), remarking on their personality quirks and tragic demises with humor and a dash of sentimentality. (She describes the original Kenny as “a frat boy with feathers.”) The story of a city-to-country transplant isn’t new, but Mitchael is funny enough to rejuvenate the narrative. Some stories are good-natured, some are aghast; all of them combine for a colorful, laugh-out-loud portrait of rural life.
