Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
My delight at the ultrasound tech’s declaration, “It’s a girl,” was immediately followed by a heaviness and fear I associated with that specific gender reveal: the food thing. I did not feel this panic a year ago when the sex of my son was announced. Food things were girl things. Read more
My mom had it. I know she had hair in all of the pictures of her before I was born. I know she had hair when I was little. I know she got her hair done at Menage e Trois Coiffers on Burton Way, and I didn’t know what “Menage Read more
We stood over you with the dropper of oxycodone, trying to get it in the tiny pocket inside your cheek, the three of us, like The Witches of Eastwick, but a lot less funny. Your jaw was clenched tight like a clam because you were about to die, only we Read more
As the automatic doors swished open, my mother began her search. The grocery store’s bakery was on our immediate right. Mom zeroed in on her target, pushing her shopping cart toward a plain woman in a peacock blue trench. To keep up, my short legs moved double time. Mom’s high Read more
I had expected worse and felt relieved to find you so close to your old self, reminiscing about the good times, carefully avoiding the bad. They said you had not smiled this much in many months, that, maybe, the fog of medication had cleared up at last, or else, your Read more
“What do you want me to do,” she asked, “live until I’m 88?!” “No,” I replied quietly, “I want you to live until I’m 88.” It was at that moment I finally realized my mother was dying. I had been down this road with her for what seemed like an Read more