Here For You
The radiation oncologist holds up a piece of paper that looks like something used for target practice. Black outline of a human figure, faceless, gender neutral. You and your father watch as she points to a clump of black squiggles drawn across the figure’s pelvis. “This is the area we treated last time.” She points...
The Hawk Outside of the NICU
One morning, as we ate sandwiches—mine had apples on it—a hawk appeared outside the hospital cafeteria window. Or no, it was not a cafeteria, it was a cafe. Which was meant, perhaps, to conjure a sense of normalcy. You could order paninis and mochas and bowls of soup. My husband and I sat there talking...
In Chinese I Am Six Years Old
I know the sweet shape of sugar, tang, and the soft sweep of cat, mao. I know wo e le, I’m hungry; I know wo bu zhi dao, I don’t know. I know wo yao, I want; wei shen me, why; dui bu qi, I’m sorry. Last March, I learned the word ai zheng, cancer....
other people’s mothers
I keep a catalogue, a mental inventory. There are mothers who paint portraits of cats dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte and mothers who fall asleep drunk on patterns for XXXL pajama pants, and mothers who mouth “fuck you” to their daughter in the backseat when they get lost in the family car and the daughter is...
Things that Burned Right Through Me
Buying baby socks and three onesies and one newborn outfit on the way to the appointment where the fetal doppler told us you were dead, the same newborn outfit I now see in the box on the closet floor every day when I drag out a sweater. My parents driving across five states to stay...
When I Was Someone Else
The white ceiling looks like heaven, I say to the nurse who hands me a paper cup of water and asks me again, maybe for the third time, to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. Three, I say, which is true. For once the hurt is minimal. Nine is the number...
Not the Plan
You didn’t answer, and you said you’d answer, just like he’d said, I’ll be here reading the Times til you come home, and when I came home his car was gone. And he was gone. And his phone lay under a pillow in our bed, which was not the plan. His death certificate in my...
Like Nothing Ever Happened
The thing about a Derek Jarman movie is when you find yourself crying you don’t know why you’re crying, not exactly. It’s the layering of everything. Like the memory of seeing his movies at the Castro Theatre in the early-‘90s when everyone was dying, we were watching or trying not to watch but we were...
after creating change
after the daylong trans institute after 300 people crammed in a room that seats 90 after the listening panel feedback session where folks hurl love & rage & are talked over & disrespected after the trans & disabled caucus asks the lesbian caucus to keep it down so we can hear each other & they...
Raiment
When my father stopped eating and we all understood it was a matter of time, I drove from Vermont to Boston to see him at the nursing home. He’d suffered a steady decline and lost the ability to care for himself, but his memory and cognitive abilities did not have the savage gaps of Alzheimer’s....
Grief-Keeping
The first prayer I remember was shma ysrael Adonai elohaynu… trailing off into quiet murmurings of twitching lips, children’s hands covering their eyes as they recited the rest of the prayer. Too holy of a moment, in case God decided to appear. You cover your eyes to concentrate, the rabbi reminds us. Australian raptors carry...
Darning
I am a grandmother of two middle-school-aged girls who call me “Granny,” and I darn socks. Not many people these days take the time to do it. People will throw holey socks away and buy new ones. As I darn in my wooden rocking chair, I know that with my white hair I look like...
Bone & Skin
1. I tell you I’m getting a tattoo to cover my scars. Some kind of tree, perhaps, the branches reaching across one scar, the roots wrapped around another. A living thing. An ancient bristlecone, a saguaro, a juniper, purple with berries. “You’re allergic to juniper,” you say, and I nod. I do not ask, “But...
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