Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
This interview is the first time Sandy Arias has spoken publicly about her daughter Jodi Arias. Sandra Dee Allen was born in 1958 in a small Northern California town. I love to call her Sandy Dee. It fits, somehow. I met Sandy at Jodi Arias’s sentencing trial, in September 2014. She Read more
I remember my fascination as a young girl of six or seven, laying on my parent’s king size bed watching my mother comb out her long, light brown hair. My mother was always different than all the other moms. Sure, she was sweet, made cookies and drove us to the Read more
I admit I didn’t really like you when we first met. We had only been in the house a month when you came over with your 12-year-old son, Kyle. You introduced yourself, welcoming us to the neighborhood. You gave us a quick, but very detailed, oral tour of the houses Read more
I learned I was a black market baby when I was 14. There was no legal adoption, and it’s still unclear if money had changed hands. The parents who took possession of me changed my identity and pretended to be my biological parents. The deception was deliberate and deep. It Read more
My mom desires a closeness with me now that she never did when I was young. I’d long suspected my mother didn’t embrace parenting in that fervent, born-for-this way that some of us do. Still, I was stunned the day she actually confirmed just how trapped she’d felt in the Read more
I’m your mother, but no I’m not listening. You’re talking in the backseat of the car. I hear you, barely. I’m your mother. You say my name “Mom? Mom!” I can’t really hear you, not really. But I will always be your mother. You’re talking more in the backseat of Read more
As with most pregnant teens during the “love generation,” I was told that the right thing to do was to relinquish my baby to a good home after he was born. Seventeen-year-old girls don’t make good mothers—or so they said. But I was a good girl. I did what I Read more
Well, this is absolutely going to ruin my love of all things lemon, I thought as I held a lemon swab in my mom’s mouth for her. This seemingly benign, care-taking piece of her cancer meds pack. Fresh, sweet lemon scented the air for a moment, but for once in Read more