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Amanda OToole

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2026

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5 Stories

54 karma pts

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What He Inherited

The older I get, the more I realize that inheritance isn't always about what someone leaves you. Sometimes it's about what happens after you receive it. We tend to think of inheritance as a gift. A house. Money. Land. Jewelry. A car. Something that belonged to someone who loved you and wanted a piece of their life to continue through yours. But an inheritance can also become a test. What will you do with what you've been given? Will you protect it? Will you share it? Will you build something with it? Or will you spend it trying to fill a hol...

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I Regret Asking For Help

Weekly Contest #369

The older I get, the more I think about the things that remain after people are gone. Not just the things they leave behind in boxes or photographs, but the things they leave behind in other people. A sentence someone said years ago. A habit they passed down without realizing it. A scar. A lesson. A memory. Sometimes I wonder what I have left behind in my children. I wonder which pieces of me they carry. I wonder if they remember the good things or if the mistakes I made became louder than everything else. There are some things I wish I coul...

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Two Lots Down

Weekly Contest #369

The older I get, the more I think about what we leave behind. Not just the big things. Not houses with our names on deeds. Not bank accounts or photographs carefully placed in albums. Not even the things people say at funerals when everyone suddenly remembers what a wonderful person you were. I think about the little things. The things nobody realizes they're carrying until years later. A phrase somebody always said. A certain way of laughing. The memory of someone sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. A song. A smell. The way somebo...

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The Elephants She Left Behind

Weekly Contest #369

Grief has a strange way of introducing itself. Sometimes it arrives as a funeral, a black dress, a box of photographs, or an empty chair at the kitchen table. Sometimes it arrives quietly, slipping into the house while everyone is still trying to figure out how to live around the absence. And sometimes, grief arrives in the shape of an elephant. My boyfriend's mother passed away on April 16 of this year. There are dates you know you will never forget because you write them down. And then there are dates that become permanently attached to yo...

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What He Let Go Of

Weekly Contest #369

Some things are lost in an instant. Others take years to let go. Three years ago, Stump was standing at the edge of a decision that no one should ever have to make. His leg had been broken thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven fractures, each one another reminder that the body can become a battlefield even when the war was never something you asked for. People hear the word amputation and imagine the moment the limb is gone. They imagine a hospital room, a surgeon, anesthesia, bandages, and the terrible silence afterward. They don't always unders...

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