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“Have a day!”
Make of this day what you will.
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I Finally Get It, Ma
Nobody knew much about autism when I was a child.
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Was She My Sunshine?
Sometimes it’s more important to receive a message than worry about its source.
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My Imaginary Father
I used to think he was strong.
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Motherly Advice with No Destination
I never had kids. I never wanted them. I have no regrets there. What I do have, though, is all this advice based on my life experience, and no one to give it to. It sometimes feels like the advisory pressure within me is building up to the point that it will erupt at an…
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Whoa. My Parents Loved Each Other.
I know this is going to sound awfully strange to those of you who were lucky enough to grow up in intact households, but for the first time, at age 52, it recently dawned on me that at some point in time, my parents actually loved each other. And now I’m having to reframe my…
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“Oh, George…”
Every once in a while, my mother used to talk in her sleep. It was usually something quite silly, and I’d have fun teasing her about it the next day. She would just roll her eyes at me. But one night, when I was about 10 years old, she said, “Oh, George…” She said it…
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Stepping on Cracks
The other day I was walking up the bridge to work and I realized I wasn’t stepping on any of the cracks. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” I took that very seriously when I was a kid. I spent most of my childhood convinced that my mother would die at any minute,…
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A Maternal Instinct for Benign Neglect
I really have to hand it to my mother. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I was exposed to the idea that parents were capable of disliking their children. Ma never gave me that impression, so the concept never occurred to me. When I was in my early 20’s, my mother admitted to…
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Assuming the Worst
When I was 11 years old, I brought some candy to school. They were those little, sugary mints that most kids have seen a million times. My best friend back then was kind of gullible, though, so when she asked me what it was, I told her it was drugs. I thought it was kind…