Category: Motherhood
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The Younglings
At the KATSEYE concert, I watched my kids more than the stage. Lara Raj, a light stick, and the unadulterated joy of being young.
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Maybe Another Time
My twins passed up a weekend with their birth mother for their last Halloween as seniors. Seventeen years of open adoption, in one shrug.
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The Last Bit I Walk Alone
The alarm goes off at five forty-five. Maggi in a thermos, a transition reel, photos by the tree, and the last bit of the walk home alone.
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My Motherhood, Explained
I notice the family at the table we cross to get to ours. I notice them because they turn in unison looking us up and down, right to left and back. I notice them as they try to reconcile the story of us, the story of me. I hold her eyes, just a smidge before…
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Twenty-Five
Twenty-five years after I landed in Pennsylvania from Madras, the body that slept light has finally stopped bracing. On arrival, race, motherhood, and the home that turned out to be nowhere.
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My Shadow
She follows me from the first walk to the last, watching, learning, absorbing. On my youngest, the child I did not write down, and what it means to be seen by her.
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What the Immigrant Mother Keeps
What does the immigrant mother actually keep. Not the language, not the ceremonies, but the invisible knowledge that settles in the hands without being formally taught. On Tamil American motherhood and what survives the crossing.
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Teaching the Kaapi
When nothing is genetic, what do immigrant mothers pass down? On kaapi, Tamil American motherhood, and the slow sediment of a life being observed.
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Three Different Mothers
Three daughters posted Mother’s Day tributes online — a scrapbook, a photo grid, a music video. Each one a different mother. An essay on being seen.
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Through the Door
My daughter was in the shower. The sentence that arrived before I was fully awake was: this is my child, but I don’t know her. A reflective essay on the week my daughters began to feel like strangers, and what my own mother said when I asked her the same question.