Today as I’ve done hundreds, probably thousands of times, I washed blood down the drain. But today it was not my own blood that swirled and disappeared. Today it was the blood of my oldest son which stained a gray cotton vest I’ve never seen before. A vest just like the red one his younger […]
Tag Archives: family
Now I have a date, an actual day that my daughter’s childhood will end. She will move into the University of Portland dorms on August 16th, assuming all goes as planned. Today I was alone, changing the sheets on Bella’s bed, and without warning tears filled my eyes. How many times have I performed this […]
Today my 13-year-old son and I were at the grocery store, and he bumped into one of his friends whom he hadn’t seen for a while. His friend apparently said to him “Oh yeah, the last time I saw you was when your parents attacked me.” I remember it clearly. We were having dinner and […]
A week ago, after his second football game of the season, my thirteen-year-old son climbed into the back seat of his grandparents’ car and sat down next to me. My parents came from out-of-town to watch him play, and he played his heart out for nearly every minute of the game. Fifteen minutes or so […]
Motherhood is daunting. No matter how many coats of denial and idealism one whitewashes it with, it is a formidable journey and it is not always easy to stay convinced of the delightfulness of the upbringing and management of the fruits of our genetic entanglements. Life is up and down, and take-it-as-it-comes, and full of […]
The flyer reads “Celebration of life”. The young caseworker who knew Werner’s father briefly at the end of his life is in charge of this event. On the phone beforehand, she tells me she has only worked here for a short time, and before this, she says, she worked with teenagers, so this is new […]
Most of us have a youthful time in our lives that we look back upon fondly, even if it was fleeting or fraught. This period in our life is often characterized by experimentation, falling in love, creativity, or travel, but mostly by a sense of unbridled freedom and a feeling of endless possibility. This time […]
Yesterday my partner Werner and I visited the small apartment where we are told his father has lived for the past four years. Werner’s uncle called a week ago to tell him that the medical examiner’s office was looking for him because his father had died. Werner was apparently the only known next of kin. […]
There’s a story a man has told for most of his life. He has changed the story to suit himself as he’s grown older and wiser and gained life experience. He knows the story intimately, yet he doesn’t really know it at all. While he believes in his story, he is aware that it could […]
To express my heartfelt gratitude for old white men, let me look no further than my own sweet father. He is 73, which I suppose makes him old-ish by young people standards. My dad is, hands down, one of my favorite people in the whole world. He is quite traditional in many ways, one might even go so […]
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