“I may end up completely estranged from my sister in the end. A risk I’m willing to take. Because as the decider, my responsibility isn’t to do what my sister wants for our mother, or even to do what’s best by some medical standard. It’s to do what our mother would want for herself.”

“Some days we will be tempted to tell the world about our mothering, and others will leave us wanting to hide behind an obnoxiously large diaper bag. I would argue that the sweet spot of vulnerability is somewhere in between.”

“I looked down at my now sleeping Mom. She was laying there naked faced, no lipstick, her thinning hair completely flattened and messy, and wrapped in a flimsy, faded hospital gown. And, I thought she had never looked more beautiful in her entire life.”

“The only difference between molestation and suicide is that you don’t die on the outside, you only die on the inside.”

“Nowstalgia is what I call that split second when I can sense that a memory is being created, and instead of being happy for the calamitous beauty of this moment, I’m already nostalgic for how much I’m going to miss it.”

“Women are not diminished by motherhood. Women are not diminished by forgoing motherhood. Women ARE diminished by inequality and misogyny, and by living in a world that is primarily tailored to the needs of men.”

It felt strange cutting my father’s nails. All the little things I did for him during those last few twilight months of his life were accompanied by complex and conflicting sets of emotions. Whether washing his hair, peeling and slicing a pear, lifting him up in the bed . . . I felt a mixture of pride and sadness.

It’s just that as much as I once envied the clarity and simplicity of the problems my grandmother and my mother had faced . . . I don’t want those problems — no matter how good a mind-movie they make.

Your baby is overwhelming and mysterious and brutal, like the ocean. He screams uncontrollably for hours a day, every day. And you bring him to one specialist after another, to be told it’s ‘colic.’ You are advised that only a ‘tincture of time’ will help.

If the rest of the world could be more empathetic . . . my son could be this happy and comfortable all of the time — because then my son could be a boy who dresses like a girl and not have to think twice about it.