When I saw my father this last time, something had changed inside me. Previously, while I had savaged my mother’s martyrdom in my head, all my self-inflicted arguments would end with whether I could sit across from my father and say, “You have to go to a home.” And that
Christmas provided no escape from family functions, a true throwback to the The Good Ol’ Days of my family of origin: we opened presents, sat around the house in pajamas most of the day, and my mother made way too much food. She started cooking after breakfast with the help
Day 1 – Of Awkwardness & Excessive Navel Gazing We were the last to make it to the house in Truckee, after dark and dinner. Already in attendance: my parents, my sisters, their husbands and children. My family had been on the road seven hours by then. And like most
When I called Mom last night, she sounded weirdly calm and instructional. Ya’ll have moms – you know that airline pilot’s voice they put on to soothingly tell you to assume crash position or whatever? That’s how she answered. “Your father’s had a change. Now if I leave, even for
My initial plan for Christmas: Take the kids to D.C. for the Smithsonian, fly home, and swing by my parents’ house for 2-3 days TOPS for the actual holiday, as I explained to Middle HERE, if you want all the footnotes and primary sources. Turns out, none of my kids