In the midwest where I’m from, when someone dies, we don’t send flowers and condolences; we send casseroles and small talk. We don’t like to feel uncomfortable with the discomfort of death. It’s unpalatable like those same “death” casseroles that had taken up space in my refrigerator. I assumed after my mother’s suicide that what the people around me wanted was for me to bypass the topic that sat between us all together and instead focus on bite-sized conversations that felt a bit more appetizing.

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