The Idealization of Jessica Trump She paused for a moment. I could hear her thinking, and then she said, “My spring break is next week, and I haven’t made any plans. I could catch a …

"Careful, Ma; don't spill your soup," I warned. "First time you spill, that's it — you're going to the home.” Mom's reply was immediate. "I know. I've picked out what I want to take with me."

She was the hardest-working human being I've ever known. The first of her four children was born in 1940, the last, 4 years later. For the next 20-plus years she did what mothers did back …

"Make sure you write about her peacefulness," my wife told me as I sat down to my computer. And if there were a one-word description of my mother, peaceful might be it. Irene Pilon, along …

"I visited your father's grave," my mother said when she last called. "And I gave his headstone a good kick." This is the sort of joke we share, my mother and I. Survivors of an …

Betsy was a piece of work. There's a scene in Amadeus: Mozart scribbles strings of notes. Salieri gasps. Mozart feathers in complex tones. "Genius! Perfection!" shouts Salieri. "Oh no," says Mozart. "Now we put in …

The mother of my youth was never afraid. She wore splashy polyester pantsuits with a thin self belt. Every weekday at 6:00 p.m. she careened into our carport in Oakland on Penniman Street in her …

"Careful, Ma; don't spill your soup," I warned. "First time you spill, that's it — you're going to the home. I'll know you can't take care of yourself." Mom's reply was immediate. "I know. I've …

My mother died at the end of October. At her wake, Duyen Pham asked if my mother ever wrote me, back in 1975. That was the year Duyen (13 at the time) and her family …

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his. — Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest Since differing with Oscar Wilde must constitute literary blasphemy, I regret …

My mother was born in the high desert of northeastern Arizona. Even now it's a hard place to thrive, with rain unlikely and resources few. Her father built their house out of adobe bricks he …

My mom has always understood: a mother's duty merely begins when she has children. Linda Bouvier took me to heart from the start — to museums when I was two, to symphonies at three -- …

"A Woman's Place is in the House...and the Senate," read the banner on the door of the cabinet that housed our dinner plates and cereal bowls. Similar posters peppered the kitchen walls: "What if Prince …

I don't know quite what to say about my mother. I love her. I talk to her twice a day on the phone. She spent years tending to a pack of feral cats, and now …

My mother died suddenly and in her sleep — with a peaceful smile on her face, my father said. I was eight when it happened, and I moved around my new life as if in …

I think I got my perfect pitch from my mother's side of the family. I got my anger from her side too. I call it the curse of perfect pitch. Or the chip-on-the-shoulder gene. My …

If I had known of such a thing at age 11, I might have told my mother I was having an anxiety attack. As it was, the only way I could communicate to her my …

We were buds, my mom and I -- until I hit puberty and became sullen and hostile -- a team, us against the world, a pretty blonde girl and a redheaded kid, walking among strangers. …

Mom, baptized Margaret Mary Howard, "Peg" to family and friends, was born March 20, 1932, in Fauleighter (pronounced Fall-ay- [clear throat]-ther), County Mayo, Ireland, to John and Margaret Howard, the third of five children. She …