The Shame of Losing. Sarah Cannon

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THE SHAME OF LOSING

      THE SHAME

      OF LOSING

      A MEMOIR

      Sarah Cannon

       The Shame of Losing

      Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Cannon

      All Rights Reserved

      No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.

      Book layout by Amber Lucido

      ISBN: 978-1-59709-624-9

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2018031084

      The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, the Meta & George Rosenberg Foundation, the Allergan Foundation, the Riordan Foundation, and the Amazon Literary Partnership partially support Red Hen Press.

      First Edition

      Published by Red Hen Press

       www.redhen.org

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I would like to dedicate this book to my late Nana whose love for books and family will always be with me. The second dedication is for my Mom & Dad, who have been there for all of it. I love you. Thank you to everyone at Red Hen Press, especially Monica Fernandez, Keaton Maddox, Rebeccah Sanhueza, and Kate Gale. To my mentors in the Creative Writing program at Goddard College—Aimee Liu, Darrah Cloud, and Ryan Boudinot—thank you. Heartfelt appreciation for Jessamyn Smyth for the time at Quest Writer’s Conference in Squamish, B.C., and for Rebecca Brown, my mentor there. The constant encouragement provided by writers and readers Samantha Kolber Pyatak, Ginna Richardson Luck, Julie Shayne, Heather Ohly, and Francine Walsh has made my finishing this book possible. And for proof that friendship can lift you up, thank you to my closest ones—you know who you are. For their profound support, I wish to thank Ned and Maura Cannon. Last and most importantly, I want to express my deep-felt respect for Miles, whose strength in survival we might all look toward when life throws us sideways, my least favorite word. Memory is fickle and contestable. This version is only mine.

      Thank you to the editors who published essays of which parts or themes of which appear in this book: Dan Jones at the New York Times; Sarah Hepola at Salon.com; Abby Murray at Collateral Journal.

      Credits: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Lee Woodruff & Bob Woodruff, Erich Maria Remarque, Frank Ocean, Norah Jones, UW Harborview Medical Center, Kevin Pierce & Crash Reel, Brain Injury Alliance of Washington, Mark O’Brien & The Sun Magazine, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Yue Minjun.

       For Eliza and Will and childhood survivors everywhere.