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It began with a hiccup as one cell tried to transfer its data to another. It began long before I, your mother, was born. A gene mutation, carried invisibly by women and passed to sons, snakes through our family tree. It is a fragment of history we can trace, a tiny bundle of stories floating in our blood.
By Bonnie J. RoughApril 2008Haiden’s morning sickness was bad, and she told me to get the boy out of the house, take him anywhere. She stood in the doorway of our downstairs bathroom, just off the kitchen, her frizzy black hair bound into a ponytail that pointed toward the ceiling like a squat exclamation point. “Please,” she said.
By Chad SimpsonApril 2008I no longer felt I had to “let go” of my first family, as some had counseled. I had two daughters, one I held in my arms and one I held in my memory, but both were equally real. In this new present I could remember and cherish Doria without pain. Feeding Laura in her highchair, I told her that Doria had opened her mouth the same way, like a baby bird.
By Varley O’ConnorFebruary 2008I was raised in a family of four girls. When my sisters and I are together, we speak a private language composed largely of different pitches of laughter that causes our exasperated father to demand to know what’s so funny. I am most at home when I am sharing clothes, secrets, and a bathroom with other women.
By Krista BremerFebruary 2008At first there’s darkness, and then darkness becoming less dark, then vaguely dark, then just shadows and the glow of sunlight pushing on closed blinds. There’s Melanie’s tangled black hair falling on the pillow inches from my face, a sniffle and the ruffle of sheets as her leg moves. There’s a siren howling closer and closer and then fading. The phone rings, then rings again.
By Alex MindtJune 2007Early-onset Alzheimer’s, a nonmonogamous relationship, an upright piano
By Our ReadersJanuary 2007When a baby boy is born / and the midwife / holds him up / as he takes / his first breath, / Place him over / the Mother’s face / so when the baby exhales / his first breath on Earth / the Mother breathes it.
By AntlerDecember 2006For eleven weeks I threw up in the late afternoons. I shivered and broke out in sweats, grew bloated and round in the cheeks. My breasts felt tender. My tongue swam in my mouth. I ate grapefruit and soft-boiled eggs, loosened my waistband, fell asleep on the floor under my desk.
By Margot SingerOctober 2006Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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