Posts tagged mother and daughter
Woman, Mother, Protector
Woman, Mother, Protector

A few months after my mom’s cancer diagnosis, I was having trouble inserting a tampon. I had never really used them, since I was still pretty young and unfamiliar with exploring that area of my body. I had gotten my period earlier than most in my grade, around the age of nine. An avid pad user at fourteen, I figured the real way to become a woman was to use a tampon. Unfortunately, when I finally mustered up the courage to try, I couldn’t figure out how to insert it in a way that wasn’t painful. I talked to my mom about it through the bathroom door, as she laid in bed after her most recent chemotherapy. The stairs had become difficult for her, and she rarely left her room. Days when I came home from school and found her on the living room couch were good days.

Yet my mom’s soft voice floated under the door: I want to help. She was crying.

Read More
InfluenceKristina Buschfamily, mother and daughter, coming of age, cancerComment
Not Your Mother's Meatloaf
Not Your Mother's Meatloaf

Tucked between the food-stained pages of my old Betty Crocker cookbook is a handwritten recipe for meatloaf. It’s written on the back of a menu from Gustaf Anders, the Swedish restaurant in Southern California where my stepbrother, John, once waited tables. It was 1992, I think, and John and his Norwegian wife were in the middle of a divorce. Or maybe it had already happened. We were drinking a lot and smoking weed in those days. We had flown back from Norway together, drunk for the entire fourteen hour flight from Oslo to Los Angeles, with a stopover in New York for Customs. I think it was New York; I was in a brownout then. The valium and booze had performed their customary magic. What I remember: putrid green cinderblock walls and men in uniforms. Our bags were screened and some item was questioned and we almost missed the connecting flight. We reeked of Marlboros and sweat and Kahlua. We’d drunk the liquor cart dry.

Read More
FeastJulia Nusbaummother and daughter, family, Childhood, Cooking, Food writing Comment
Mother's Day Over Madagascar
Mother's Day Over Madagascar

Fucking first times, my therapist calls them.  First holidays, significant occasions, anniversary of the death.  The first time after you’ve lost someone, lost a child.  It caught me off guard the first year, things that I didn’t expect took me to my knees.  Easter, why did that leave me weeping, lashing out at everyone, feeling like a horrible failure?  We weren’t religious and even if we were, Nel was most certainly not.  She’d called me from prison the last Easter she was alive, Happy Easter! I tried to chirp at her.  She stopped me mid-happy.

Read More
GriefJulia Nusbaummotherhood, Death, mother and daughter, grief Comments
The Love You Can't Give
The Love You Can't Give

“If that’s what you’ve decided to do, then go do it. But if you leave, you better know you can’t come back.”

I sat on the edge of the dining room chair as my mother stood over me, gripping the remote control in her hand, eyes blazing.

“I’m only moving to Astoria,” I said. Although my words came out smoothly, glibly even, my stomach turned over in knots.

Read More
MotherhoodJulia NusbaumMotherhood, Adoption, Older Mother, lebanese, mother and daughter Comment