Still don’t have a Mother’s Day present for that special mom in your life?

I’ll be signing books at Barnes and Noble in North Charleston on Friday, May 8th from 5 pm to 8 pm at a special Literary Mama table. I’ll have available all the mother-centered books I’ve either edited or contributed to, including:

Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined
Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Tribute to Moms
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms
Cup of Comfort for New Mothers
Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers
Mama PhD

So, stop by and pick up a Mother’s Day gift!

WRITER'S DIGEST NAMES LITERARY MAMA IN LIST OF 101 BEST WEBSITES FOR WRITERS 2009

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REPORTS

Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On Edited by Candace Walsh. Seal, $15.95 paper (250p) ISBN 978-1-58005-276-4

In keeping with the almost defiant title, this collection of 29 essays is a mixture of ballsy and introspective, humorous and bleak—though never bleak for long. Though individual and quirky, these essays share a theme. As Julie Hammonds writes pithily in “The Love List”: “What to do next with my life? Where to go? Who to become? Big questions, fear inducing.” She decided to travel solo for six months. And while the economic effects of divorce are all too real, each woman has a chance to become stronger, more herself. As Marrit Ingman says with delightful economy in “Breakup Buddies,” “Our fortunes declined. But at the same time, our struggles had a reason, at last. Bad odds were better than no chance at all.” Editor Walsh (Moving to New York) steps up the honesty in revealing that she left her unhappy marriage after falling in love with her female therapist, ultimately finding her true love via Match.com. These stories of exploration and change, whether tentative or bold, will inspire readers who are questioning their own status. (Due out in June)

I've received my contributor copy of Cup of Comfort for New Mothers today, and it looks snazzy. I've started reading the other contributors' essays, and I'm being taken back to that early time of motherhood.

I'm reading from the book on Sunday at Barnes and Noble in North Charleston (and from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms, and I am proud to be part of an active mother writing community.

Literary Mamas Caroline Grant and Kristina Riggle are also in the book. Caroline wrote about it on Food for Thought.

Pinewood teacher published alongside bestselling author Jodi Picoult
Published Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1:59 PM
Summerville Journal Scene


When Pinewood teacher Amy Hudock discovered that her essay “Books Still Waiting” will appear next month in “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms,” she was happy. When she found out that Jodi Picoult also has an essay in the same book, she was thrilled.

“Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite contemporary authors,” Hudock said. “I am honored for my work to appear alongside hers. It’s like getting to play in the NBA.” Hudock will be reading the essay at the “Pinewood Arts Day” at the North Charleston Barnes and Nobles March 8 at 3 p.m. The book can be preordered at that time, and a percentage of the proceeds will go to the Arts programs (Drama, English and Visual Arts) at Pinewood.

TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Wow. March 10th has snuck up on me. That is the date for the release of Cup of Comfort for New Mothers!

I have an essay in the book about my own new motherhood. In an ironic combination of events, I became a new mother at the same time our country faced a new national tragedy. My water broke on 9/11, as I sat watching the planes on TV. My essay, "Learning to Breathe," explores the intertwining of the fresh and raw public fears with my fresh and raw new motherhood. I consider how hope helped me to transcend that difficult time.

Here is what Amazon says about the book:

There’s a new baby in the house—and it’s not the only one crying. New moms cry happy tears, tired tears, and overwhelmed tears—and that’s when the wisdom, sensitivity, and empathy of women who’ve been there prove invaluable. In this book, you meet fifty mommies who’ve lived and loved through those terribly wonderful first months home with baby. From a first time mom faced with keeping her little miracle safe and happy once daddy goes back to work, to a mother who wonders how she will find time for the newest member of her already sizable family, these moving stories provide the support and reassurance first-time mothers need to enjoy their new role—and their baby—to the fullest!

FOR MORE INFORMATION . . .

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: POWER MOMS

I didn't know who else was in CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: POWER MOMS, then I watched this trailer. And I found out: I have an essay in the same book as Jodi Picoult. Gulp. I feel kinda woosey.



I was a Women’s Studies professor at the University of California at Berkeley when I became pregnant. I ended up leaving academia and staying home with my daughter for two years. When I suddenly found myself a single mom, I went back to teaching at the University of South Carolina, where I had received my Ph. D. in English and Women’s Studies. The essay in Power Moms tells the story of my first day back in the library as a researcher. While looking at the books around me, I consider how having been a stay-at-home mom can make me a better professor.

This book contains 101 great stories from mothers who have made the choice to stay home, or work from home, while raising their families. These multi-tasking, high-performing women have become today's Power Moms. Every stay-at-home and work-from-home mom will view this book as having been written just for her. Perfect for book groups, it will contain a reader guide.

Wendy Walker, author of Four Wives and The Queen of Suburbia, edited the book. She has become the go-to media expert on women leaving the workforce to raise their families and run their homes. She describes the book, “Author Jodi Picoult writes about her early years as a stay-home mom and writer. Lynne Spears writes about raising Britney. Mary Himes, wife of Congressman Jim Himes, writes about the sudden change in her life. Other moms write about making their decision to quit their paying jobs, and how they manage to afford it by digging coins from the couch cushions to pay the bills. There are doctors and lawyers, teachers and actresses, all doing the same job day in and day out – providing the primary care for their kids.”

The book will be released March 24.

Read more about the book at Wendy Walker's site.

Once again, I am proud to be a part of the Mama, PhD community.

As I read the review The Ivory Ceiling by Jo Keroes over at Mommy Track'd, I thought back to when I left my tenure-track job because I couldn't get the maternity leave I requested. I considered the two years I later spent on the job market trying to find one of those mythical on ramps that would lead me back into a tenure-track job. I remembered choosing instead a job as a high school English teacher so that I could care for both my young daughter and my cancer-battling mother.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job, and I teach some of the best students imaginable. My work is rewarding, and I know that I made a good choice for both me and my family. However, when I started on the tenure-track at Marshall University in 1995, I was hired with two amazing women, who are still my friends. When they became full professors, I cried. And cried. While I gain much from my experience now, I also long for what might have been.

I see more women teachers than men teachers in my K-12 school -- because teaching younger children is traditionally considered women's work. When I go to a technical college, I see about half and half women and men. However, in larger universities, we start to see fewer women. Studies show that the number of tenured full professors who are women is going down rather than going up. And we can see why.

The review reminds us:

women who have at least one child within five years of getting their doctorate are less likely to achieve tenure than men who have children early in their careers. Climbing that ladder to tenure requires a full time commitment – not just to teaching, but to university service, scholarship and publication– that simply doesn’t leave much room for caring for a family, despite those summers “off,” often the only time faculty members can find any time at all to write. As anyone who has tried to study or write with young children around, this time is hardly one’s own. Academic women often feel compelled to choose between having a child and getting tenure.

So, this review, and this book, matters to me. I had the same experience reading the review that I had reading the book itself -- this happened to other mothers. I am not crazy. I am not lazy or a failure or someone not committed enough. I am not alone.

When I wrote about my experiences in my column, Mothering in the Ivory Tower, I broke the code. I talked about what had happened to me in public, and at that point in time, I had not heard any other academic mother do so. But now, years later, we have Mama, PhD. We have mothers in academia who report that the academy is becoming less unfriendly to mothers. We can see that our voices are having an effect. Hopefully, we are moving toward a change that will remind people that all academics are also part of family systems, and that they can be better professors if they can live full, rounded lives.

Continue reading this review . . .

I was hanging out at Single Minded Women, and I ran across a review by Melissa Chapman of A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers. I was pleased to see the review, and even more flattered to find that Colleen Sell, the energetic editor of the Cup of Comfort series, had some nice things to day about my piece. From the review:

One of Sell's favorites is "Altars of Sacrifice," by Amy Hudock which is the quintessential lament of single mothers everywhere and gives voice to the many sacrifices most single mothers make,being stretched so thin -- physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually, mentally --that virtually nothing is left for themselves. Then, in the middle of yet another sleepless night for this single Mom, comes an aha moment.

This beleaguered woman -- who yearns for pleasure, peace, and partnership, but for years has been unable to envision, much less take a single step toward, those desires -- realizes that, while she has been riding the tide of responsibility and worry, she has become an observer of her own life, rather than its captain and champion.And she decides, literally and figuratively, to get back in the saddle again.

As Amy eloquently writes in her story: “Maybe I haven't been ready, and I needed the time to sit and watch. But the fact that I am even wondering about why I am still sitting here suggests that I am no longer content being an observer. I need to dust off my saddle and find my boots. Jumping a horse is the closest thing to flying I have ever known. Perhaps if I remember how to fly, I will remember how to sleep—and once I'm able to sleep again, maybe I can allow myself to dream.”

Thanks, Colleen and Melissa. You made this single mom's day! I wrote this story years ago, and the good news is: I did start riding again -- both literally and figuratively. The writing about it helped me understand how important it was to do it.

You can read the rest of the review here....

Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Publications

Books

* Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal Press, Jan. 2006).

Awards

* Essay "Altars of Sacrifce" chosen as the best of the essays included in Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers ($500)

Memoir, Personal Essays, and Fiction

* "Finding a New Voice." Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms. forthcoming.
* "It's the Bed." Skirt. forthcoming.
* "Breathing Lessons" Cup of Comfort for New Mothers. forthcoming.
* "Pride and Prejudice" Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Tribute to Mothers (2008).
* "Altars of Sacrifice" Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers (2008)
• “First Day of School” Mama, Ph. D. Edited by Caroline Grant and Elrena Evans (2008).
* What Daughters Do, Single State of the Union: Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
* Single Mom Fantasy, Literary Mama, February 2007.
* Transformations, Skirt! Magazine, September 2006.
* The River
* Down into the Mine
* Father Writing: Floundering or Flourishing?, Literary Mama, 2006.
* Happy Birthday to Literary Mama, Literary Mama, 2006.
* Why Start a Pregnancy Journal?, Literary Mama
* How to Publish a Book, Literary Mama, 2007.
• How to Start Journal Writing about Motherhood” Pregnancy and Baby, May 2003.
• "Learning to Swim, Philosophical Mother, June 2003.
• “Journal Writing about Motherhood” Neighborhood Parents Network. March 2003.
• “Making the Invisible Visible: Writing about Motherhood” Neighborhood Parents Network. February 2003

Columns

* Mother Writers: Our Storied Past
* Mothering in the Ivory Tower (archived)
* Writing through Motherhood. ePregnancy (not archived).


Publications about the Author

* She's So Skirt, Skirt! Magazine, April 2007.
* Profile, LiteraryMama.com, March 2007.
* Literary Mama: Mothers of Invention, Washington Post, Mar 19, 2006.
* Tales from the Motherhood Brain, Child
* Online Magazine is Edited for Mothers, by MothersUSC Times, Jan 2005.
* Professor Creates Outlet for Mothers Who Write by Amy Geler Edgar, Associated Press, 2004.
* Are Faculty Members Overworked? Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov 5, 2004.
* Panel on Writing about Motherhood" University of Richmond, Oct, 2004.


Scholarly Publications

Books

• American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Co-edited with Katharine Rodier. Detroit: Gale, 2001.
* Educating Women for Science and Mathematics: A University of South Carolina Model Project. Co-edited/written with Judith Giblin James and Sue Rosser. A National Science Foundation Project, 1994.

Articles

• “Reproduction and Motherhood” in Encyclopedia of Women’s Autobiography. Edited by Jo Malin and Denise Knight. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005.
• Special Guest Forward. Feminism in Literature (6 volume set) Detroit: Gale, 2005
• "E. D. E. N. Southworth" co-written with Joanne Dobson in American Women Prose Writers, 1820 1870. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale, 2001.
• "Mary Anne Cruse" in American Women Prose Writers, 1820-1870. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Gale, 2001.
• "E. D. E. N. Southworth" in 19th-Century American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998.
• "Challenging the Hero Myth in E. D. E. N. Southworth's The Hidden Hand." ATQ: 19th C. American Literature and Culture 9.1 (1995): 5-20.
• "Bharati Mukherjee" in Reference Guide to American Literature. 3rd ed. Detroit, MI: St. James, 1995.
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" in Masterplots II: Women's Literature. Pasadena, CA: Salem,1995.
• Book Review. Kate Chopin: The Life of the Author of "The Awakening" by Emily Toth. Women's Studies International Forum 15 5/6 (1992): 625-626.
• Book Review. Feminism and Science Fiction by Sarah Lefanu. Women's Studies International Forum 14 1/2 (1991): 114-115.

New LIterary Mama review!

Check out Kim Moldofsky's review of Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. She writes that: "This collection is like a box of chocolates—rich, satisfying and full of unexpected treats." Read more at Chicago Parent. Thanks, Kim! You can also check out Kim's blog, Hormone Colored Days, for good reading!

New Review of Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined.

Great news on the book! The book is selling strong, and the reviews, so far, have been good. Check out the latest review at BookPleasures.com. Here is an excerpt:

The new print anthology, “Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined” – a brilliant case in point – is a “best of” collection from the online journal, which showcases both its “edginess” and superior literary quality. The first of the book’s seven sections, “Creative Acts,” describes attempts (successful and otherwise) to combine the writing life with motherhood. There are two subsequent chapters on gender-specific mothering (“Mothers Raising Women” and “Mothers Raising Men”) followed by a segment entitled “Sex, Fertility, and the Body,” which is obviously the “edgiest” chapter. The longest section and the one I found the most moving is called, “Mothers, Fathers, Parents,” which concerns itself with the dovetailing of parenting past and present. The final two sections titled “Surviving Illness and Loss” and “Healing the Past to Live in the Present” contains literature which focuses on everything from miscarriage to empty nest syndrome.

You can read the rest of the review by Kathryn Atwood here.

Literary Mama review in the Washington Post

Check out the lastest review of the book I co-edited with Andi Buchanan, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined (Seal Press 2006), by Evelyn Small entitled Literary Mama: Mothers of Invention.

Here is an excerpt

Literary Mamas includes memoirs, fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry by contributors who are long-time and first-time writers, scholars and grandmothers, all focused on motherhood in its infinite varieties. Here are women "writing through the distractions" and the "domestic chaos"; women dealing with the oft-repeated theme of balancing, doing the "devastating dance" of working and mothering; mothers who go crazy and others who just go; mothers who have tantrums -- "there is something to be said for a tantrum"; a woman who "thought having a baby would not change my life"; a poet with only "a handful of poems to show," but a "poemchild, whose smile is all my sonnets." Fit and unfit mothers, all imperfect in their separate ways.

Here, too, is all the busy work of mothers -- women engaged continually in those active gerunds that have been on mothers' to-do lists through the centuries: nursing, weaning, caring, cleaning, teaching, fixing, helping, healing, hoping, fearing. Among my favorites are Megeen R. Mulholland's poem "Miscarriage of an English Teacher" and Heidi Raykeil's excerpt from her memoir about the death of her baby, "Johnny."

Read the entire review here.

An interesting reader question came today about my fiction piece The River published in the book I co-edited with Andrea Buchanan, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclinded (Seal Press, 2006). People often wonder where fiction writers get their ideas--how much is "real" and how much is "made up." So, I tried to explain that in my reply:

Question: I read one of your literary pieces entitled, The River this morning.  It truly moved me, and I am curious as to your inspiration.  It was so gripping.  My half sister is bipolar and my brother took his life at age 29.  However, my brother's death was drug related.  I can remember when, shortly before he died, he checked himself into a stress center.  He called me from the hospital and told me he didn't belong there.  He said he saw all these crazy people, which made him feel crazy and worse than ever.  As it turned out, he was allowed to go home over the weekend to wash his clothes and such but he drove straight to the woods and, well, ended it.  Was there someone close to you that motivated the piece?
 
Answer: I'm glad you liked The River. I wrote the piece because there are so many stories out there about mother poets/writers/artists who commit suicide--and real life examples like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton--that I wanted to rewrite the tale with a positive ending. I wanted to show how motherhood could potentially save the poet/writer/artist instead of destroying her.

My experience of becoming a mother was extremely positive. Somehow, as I was growing a 10 pound baby, I also grew an inch taller, became a shoe size larger, and produced a new set of synaptic pathways that helped me become more creative at the same time I became more grounded and whole. Becoming a mother changed my life so much for the better, and I wanted to write about that. I end the story with the character making the decision to live, but I don't show how motherhood changed her in other ways. If I were to write the next chapter, I would show her starting to write poetry again, or starting to paint--something creative. I would show her rebirth into a fuller and better life as she births her child.

I am not the character in the story, nor does she represent any one person that I know. Dana is an invention, and I took her name from Dana Scully in the X-Files because I see this character a lot like that one. They share a driven personality that doesn't allow much time for the creative, and they both are transformed by desire for a child. So, while the Dana I created is not me, I did take parts of my life, characteristics of people I knew who suffered from mental illness, and elements I saw in fictional characters, and then I combined them into a fictional tale that is a lie to get at an important truth--the truth that motherhood, to me, is a miracle--that I can't seem to express as clearly as I would like. Because miracles are, by definition, mysteries.

To me, literature is an attempt to get at those unsayable and unknowable mysteries, and fiction sometimes can get closer than nonfiction can. Nonfiction is controlled by my memory of what happened. In fiction, I can control who the character is, what she says, what she does. I can put her in situations where she acts in ways that prove the point I want to make. Fiction provides me more freedom, though I also enjoy writing nonfiction.



 

I sit on my upper front porch, door open so that I can see hear if my daughter wakes up and calls for me from her room. In the pasture across the street, horses graze in the moonlight. I hear their soft snorts as they move lazily along the fence, heads down, jaws grinding.

I remember taking my sleeping bag to the barn when I was child, and hearing the same soothing noises as I drifted off to sleep in the hay. Once, I woke I the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. My pony, Rainyday, was not all surprised when I climbed on his back as he got his midnight snack. As I lay back on his haunches, his slow, rolling walk rocked me back toward sleep.

I picked this house over other similar ones because of the horses. I love sitting here, watching them. I love looking out any of the front windows and seeing them. I love driving to work and knowing they’ll be here when I get back. They make my new house feel like home.

I have not, however, gone over to ride one of them.

I revised this blog post into an essay you can now find in A Cup of Comfort for Single Mothers.

Spring Break 2005

“My hair fell out,” my mom said with a forced laugh made even more hollow by the cell phone.

“What? All of it?” I replied.

“Well, most of it. I took a shower, and it came out……..
I need to shave off the rest. You have sheers?”

A long pause.

“I’ll be right there, “ I said as I clicked off the phone.

I found her sitting on the deck at the trailer, head exposed to the sun and ocean breezes. Big clumps had fallen out. It was uneven and odd looking, like she had decided to become a punk rocker and get a Mohican. Red or green dye should be next.

“Well, not all of it,” I said with a hug. "I didn't think it would come out after the first infusion.

She seemed calm, steady. “Well, it did. I just want it all gone. It’s going anyway. I’d rather not have it fall out in dribs and drabs. Let’s get it all.”

You can read the rest of the story in a revised version in Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Tribute to Mothers.

New Years Day 2005.

My mom got up to go to work at the Native American Health Service hospital in Kotzebue, Alaska, where she is a nurse. As she looked outside, a blizzard was heaping snow into mountains, whiting out the sky and land into one milky blur. She pulled tight her parka and began to walk across the drifts to the hospital. The weight of the snow pushed on her legs, her pelvis. After 30 minutes on a normally 5 minute walk, she arrived at the hospital. She began to spot, just a bit. Then, that night she woke up wet and red. Uterine cancer, they ultimately told her. Stage 3. Aggressive.

When I first heard this, I thought, “It will be the easy kind. You know, the kind that they operate on and goes away.”

Well, she had the surgery, but it was still there, inside her, silently growing and destroying.

She got on a plane less than two weeks after the operation, flew across a continent, and moved into my house. She faces 6 months of chemo, four weeks off, then six weeks of radiation. I don’t have the luxury of believe it will be the easy kind any more.

***


I followed Mom through the forest, placing my feet carefully to avoid getting stuck in the mud. Mom and her dog walked ahead with the bear gun while I tried to keep up. I could hear her singing to warn the bears of our approach. I had run out of breath to sing. My pack was biting into my shoulders. The gun holster pulled me slightly off balance. A 357 Magnum, I learned, is a very heavy gun. I had learned to shoot a gun by the time I was 10 years old. I could ride a bucking horse, hike long mountain trials and make my way home in the dark, find clean drinking water in the middle of nowhere, but I could not, right then, keep up with my mother. Though I had followed her through many forests, down many rivers, across many fields, she now walked with a confidence, a solidness, I had never seen in her.

Her life in the lower 48 was like most people’s lives—a bit quirky, but recognizable. When the last child left the house when she was 49 years old, she sold almost everything she had, stored the rest, and hopped a plane to Alaska. She went to live her dream. She became a person I didn’t know.

When she wasn't out working a contract, she lived in a log cabin nearly two miles from the nearest road. Across a river. Off the grid. Off the water supply. Off toward the edge of the civilized world. Behind her land, stood the wide open spaces of Denali National Park. I was getting tired of the grandness of it all and wanted to sit.

She turned to me, “Doing ok, city girl?”

I nodded, resentful but knowing she was exactly right. I had become a city girl. Our experiences had grown far apart, and what she was learning she hadn’t been able to teach to me.

We got to the creek, and we could see mom’s cabin up on the bluff across the water. She grabbed the boat, directed me to sit in it, and began rowing us as I sat there, uselessly.

“I have to start here so that I can angle the boat just right to hit my landing spot,” she explained to me. “At least the water is down,” she continued, “but that was not the way it was a few weeks ago. We had some melt off and rain flood it, and I saw something I thought I would never see. I heard all this thunder, and when I went outside to look, I saw the sound was the boulders rolling. I never thought I would see something so large move like that.”

I looked at the truck size boulders. “You didn’t have to cross it, did you?” I said in awe.

“Well, only once,” she replied. “And that is something I don’t want to do everyday. I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Some day, this creek is gonna get me. When I go, it will probably be right here.”

As I watched the sure way she guided the boat, I thought to myself, “Never." We landed and hauled ourselves and our gear up to the cabin.

Once we were settled, mom took a good look at me, and said, “You need a bath.” Not one to argue with the chance to have a bath after three days of not having one, I offered to haul the water.

Warm water hit the back of my head and ran down my face. I took a deep breath and then it came again. I watched the suds from my hair drip off my naked feet and through the wide spaced in the floorboards. I knew the weeds under the sauna were surprised at getting so well watered. My mother, I am sure, usually didn’t use this much water because hauling it makes it too dear. But this was a special day. She was washing my hair.

The eldest woman washing the hair of the newcomer or guest of honor has a long tradition among Yupic women. A few Yupic women whom my mother helped through labor once invited her to join them for a sweat. And this was the way they honored her, the eldest washing the hair of the healer. And it was how my mother now honored me, a daughter returned from far away places. I stood perfectly still, not wanting the moment to end.

Afterwards, we sat on the porch, rocking and drinking Tang. The sun moved toward the tops of the mountains in the distance, getting ready to rest just below the horizon for a few hours before coming up again, creating the longest sunset/sunrise I would ever see. Here, at the top of the world, daylight ruled the summer, and darkness was pushed into small moments. The animals would come out to hunt for food under the cover of the long twilight, working swiftly against the coming of the light. We were safe, there on the porch.

Now, as cancer stalks us, and I think back on her life in Alaska, I wonder how can she be ill? How can she die? Ever?

***

The room is filled with recliners—filled with people in hats and scarves—people who are getting filled up with poisons meant to save them. Light flows in from the floor to ceiling wall of windows, reflecting off the polished hardwood floors. Clean. Bright.

My mom has a seat by the windows, looking out a collection of trees left behind by surrounding development. A small, untouched wild area. A creek runs through the small valley, and hardwood trees branches make shadows on the fallen leaves on the ground. Mom is sitting back in her recliner, watching the dark on light.

“Do you need anything?” I ask in my perpetual attempt to do something. Anything.

She reaches out her hand to stroke mine, and seems satisfied with the touch as she smiles her “No.”

Read the rest of the story (revised version) in the book Single State of the Union.