My mom loved dogs, and I could tell you many stories to show you how much. But today, here's one. My mom moved a lot and almost always lived in apartments. She had very little money. A dog of her own was impossible. She wanted a big dog, and pet deposits and vet bills were …
I do my best to avoid the Could-Have-Been Monster. Who isn't familiar with it? Who sitting alone late a night staring at a screen of one kind or another hasn't felt it lurking in the shadows reaching for a hunched over shoulder? It is a patient monster, never really giving up, always there waiting for …
In a few days, I'll celebrate another birthday. This birthday will make me older than my mother (pictured) was when she died. She died when I was 21, and I remember one night (though it was probably actually many nights) failing to sleep and thinking about the future without my mom. In my dorm room, …
Nothing scary is happening. Not yet, anyway. Oh, scary things lurk nearby, certainly. Ebola has come to my state. War wages in far too many places to list. Terrorists plot somewhere. Something you don't expect waits right around the corner. But I'm sitting on my patio, glimpsing fireflies and listening to the whir of the …
The other day I listened to an On the Media radio story about the decline of the beat reporter, and one beat they covered was the obituary beat. I struck by the realization that so many papers no longer cover obituaries, and while some papers might have an online version, families have to pay every …
Fall gives me energy. Maybe it's all those years starting school in the fall, going to the store to buy new notebooks and folders that made me feel like everything was beginning all over again. My dad wasn't one to take me shopping much. He was a single dad and so shopping for my shoes, …
Continue reading The End Summer and the Beginning of New Things
The summer season here in the northern hemisphere is winding down. Are you a summer sort of person? I'm not really. I prefer fall, the crisp change in the air (although still a ways off yet in Texas) and the fun of Halloween. How far away from your hometown do you live? Have you left …
Back in the late 70's my mother made a stop-animation film for a college class. I remember looking at the set she'd built on a table in her apartment and her warning me that if I touched it, she'd kill me. The project took a very long time. A tiny bit of film, she'd move …
I've been trying to work on a poem for my mom, but I am insecure about my poetry. After my mom left my dad, she started writing poems. Maybe she wrote them before that, but I have no proof. What I have is a journal filled with poems dated 1975 or 1976. My mom inscribed …
I found a beat-up copy of Watership Down on my mother's bookshelf. I was in the 7th grade and especially interested in reading what my mother read. A few weeks after finishing the book, I read it again. And before 7th grade was over, I read it a third time. The next summer I tried …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 