When did you last check the expiration date on the “Mom stories” you carry around?

Some of the first stories we create are the ones about our parents. As we grow up, those stories tend to get placed on the out-of-reach bookshelves of our lives, coming down only for holidays and other visits home. But here’s the thing: just as we grow and change, so do our moms and dads. That’s what I found out in 2018 when, in the span of twenty-days, my mom went through a health crisis that forced her to move into assisted living and me to move back to Texas.

Where all the stories I’d long ago put away came tumbling down. Stories about my relationship with Mom and America’s relationship with our elders. Stories about the place we call home and the lengths we sometimes go to in order to pretend that where we’re from isn’t really…where we are from.

I write The Mom Chronicles because I hope that, maybe by sharing my stories, you can start to revisit some of your own.