When my mother became homeless and moved into my one-bedroom apartment.

A piece I wrote a week after my mother passed. Also, forgive me for being late the past couple weeks… I’ve had something weird going on with my throat.

My mother gives me a pep talk when I felt depressed after taking Sudafed, at the same time as an intoxicated man attempts to cross the street.

A conversation about our one unadulterated drop of god.

On the phone with my mother when my son was a toddler.

A story about breaking cycles of dysfunction.

When my ceiling fan almost catches on fire, I receive guidance from my mother.

Passing through is a piece I wrote about my grandmother's husband dying. In this piece I was thinking about generations. About my own family. About what our parents and grandparents leave us in our emotional inheritance. I was thinking how when my grandmother died, she had not spoken with my mother in 20 years. How my grandmother hardly spoke to her own mother. So much pain and so much dysfunction. So much unfinished business.

Some insights I had while trying to do something meaningful with my mother’s ashes.

An Old Conversation with my mother when I was pregnant and she didn't know how to retrieve a text message.

“The thing about trauma is that if you don’t get it out and identify it as trauma, you risk continuing to cope with trauma simply because you might not have the sense to recognize that’s what it is.” — from 'Libraries of Trauma'

A pep talk with my mother when I was feeling hurt from not getting approval from someone.

A piece about how it’s really impossible to judge anyone because it’s impossible to understand the whole story of what’s going on.

This story is about the time my paranoid mother became homeless and took a bus to NYC to be with me. It was published by So to Speak Journal: language + feminism + art where it was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. It can be read there at https://bit.ly/32qttgv.