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Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.

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Mothers are supposed to listen and, afterward, to respond with some wisdom and perspective, but these things were not my mother's strong suit.

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My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.

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Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the str...more

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We can't understand when we're pregnant, or when our siblings are expecting, how profound it is to have a shared history with a younger generation: bl...more

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Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good a...more

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Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write,...more

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I've spent my whole life trying to get over having had Nikki for a mother, and I have to say that from day one after she died, I liked having a dead m...more

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Hope is not logical. It always comes as a surprise, just when you think all hope is lost. Hope is the cousin to grief, and both take time: you can’t s...more

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I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she ...more