Heather Haldeman Pick up the Phone! “There you are!” Mom would say, taking a slurp of her instant coffee. It would be 8:00 am, the usual time for her morning call. I’d picture her in bed, the long powder…
This year, MER is examining the ins and outs of mothers with families, both online and in our forthcoming print issues. Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around us. Family of heritage,…
Bethany Bruno Love, Without the Ashes I come from a long line of women who held their pain quietly, who carried too much and asked for too little. Irish women. Women with too many kids, too little money, too much…
Kathy Curto Cool and Low in the 70s The pills are moist and a little swollen. My mother carries them into my room using the bottom of her apron as a shovel. Picture this: an apron, stained in all…
Susan Finch How to Mourn Your Father When You’re a Mom Sometimes you cry while driving to school and soccer practice and basketball practice and the PTO meeting and the doctor’s appointment and the dentist’s appointment and the spring…
Alisha Goldblatt Tracing the Faultlines We can’t choose our family, of course, nor is the warmth and reliability of our neighbors ever a guarantee. But somehow on this street of mostly transplanted now-Mainers, we won the lottery. Never mind…
Tatiana Johnson Boria Saturn After each visit to your grandmother’s group home, over the past two decades, I’ve learned the art of capturing. Of forcing my mind to remember my mother in all of her dimensions. I use these…
Tamara J. Madison Dispatch My mother suffered Beauty, having so much of it, being sought after, suitors lined and vying for her attention. What to do with all that fineness? It must have been a lot of upkeep to…
Lisa Moak Bonding With Stone My mother was a go-go dancer, or so I was told. I never met my mother. I doubt she was allowed to hold me before I was whisked away to foster care, then adopted.…
Elizabeth H. Winkler Love Languages My mother irons my pillowcases, smoothing their wrinkles into sharp edges—crisp. There is a poem in that. An essay, too, and maybe even a song. I want to tell her there’s no need; I…
Mothers and Family This year, MER is examining the ins and outs of mothers with families, both online and in our forthcoming print issues. Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around…
Jessica Yen Houdini When your second child has been thrashing for twenty-one minutes in their bassinet, you finally recognize, with a clarity you could not have possessed with your eldest, that your infant is so achingly overtired they are…