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I wonder if all mothers feel like this the moment they realize their daughters are growing up—as if it is impossible to believe that the laundry I onc...more

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In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who lose a child.

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In my previous life I was a civil attorney. At one point I truly believed that was what I wanted to be- but that was before I'd been handed a fistful ...more

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(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.

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Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his ne...more

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Being a mother gives you a singular sort of vision, a prism through which you can see your child with many different faces all at once. It is the reas...more

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What he did was wrong. He doesn't deserve your love. But he does deserve your forgiveness, because otherwise he will grow like a weed in your heart un...more

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You cannot hate someone until you know what it might be like to love them.

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When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again, yet after having given birth you realize that the biggest p...more

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When you're a parent you find yourself looking at the unknown that is your child, trying to find a piece of yourself inside her, because sometimes tha...more

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You can't hate someone until you know what it might be like to love them.

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I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-n...more

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There are legions of us, I realized. The mothers who have broken babies, and spend the rest of our lives wondering if we should have spared them. And ...more

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Here's what I hadn't realized: the mother you haven't seen for almost thirty-six years isn't your mother, she's a stranger. Sharing DNA doesn't make y...more

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Annie turned away, her eyes glittering. 'Here's what no one tells you,' she said. 'When you deliver a fetus, you get a death certificate, but not a bi...more