For a better part of our children’s lives we are defined by them, or maybe, become defined by them. Then there comes that pivotal moment when we have done our job, hopefully with much success, and they go out into…
Browsing: MER Online
My three year-old can wink. She has been able to do it for months now. Popeye gave her the idea, but her timing is all her own. I hear something shatter in the bathroom and round the corner in time…
One night, I was reminiscing, which I tend to do a lot of on nights I can’t get to sleep. My thoughts transported me back to when I was a little girl of around seven. I had been visiting my grandmother and…
Kylemore Abbey, home of the Benedictine Order of Nuns is situated on the picturesque west coast of Ireland. The nuns who reside here take a vow of silence and live quiet, peaceful lives in an enormous castle. The pristine acres…
In between fertility treatments, every time my husband Jose and I have half-decent sex when I know I must be ovulating, this stubborn little part of me still thinks we might have conceived naturally, that maybe the stars have aligned…
When polishing sterling silver, Use a soft cream and a damp cloth Lest you scratch the shiny surface Of what you never meant to mar. A mother of four children, Jane Blanchard divides her time between Augusta and St.…
I did eight loads of laundry. I paid the bills. I cleaned the house. I filled out medical forms. My hair was pulled up in a haphazard top knot. My outfit consisted of waterproof track pants and a thermal shirt.…
Once, a few years ago – I think I was around eight at the time – I was in this foster home and the woman there – Barb was her name – promised to read me the entire set of…
You have trained your restless haunches for eight months now, within me, growing by skull and brow, ribs and toes—simple kicks and I contain the world. An oak tree’s tangled loin inhales, a scratch of breath drawn over bark and…
I drive across the Henry Hudson Bridge and get off the parkway at Dyckman Street, an exit I have always associated with my mother but never taken before. It is mid-August, blue-skied and not too hot, and my mother is…