"The Cleaner": birth of an idea

We were spending a lazy summer weekend at our neighbors 'camp' on the shores of a New Hampshire lake when my friend Anu's FB tag showed up. It was the ALS Ice-bucket challenge that was swamping everyone's news-feed, inciting equal parts amusement and annoyance. I've done my share of ranting over armchair activism that breeds complacence and indifference but jumped happily at this one.

That afternoon on the O'Connors' dock by the glassy, peaceful lake, our friend Michele filmed as my 7 year old son Oyon dumped a bowl of ice water on my head and we made our appeal for research funding to cure this awful disease. 

Other mothers, 2015

(Written May 2015 but published April 2016) 
We had just finished up at Oyons doctor yesterday afternoon. On his way out, Dr. Biller paused in the doorway, twinkled briefly and said "Happy Mothers Day!". As we drove home, the car radio burbled its support too for this sentimental occasion: WBUR's alliance with Winston flowers, please your mom and support public radio.

Like last year, my thoughts wandered from the fanfare around this holiday to those who are deprived of it:

- Mother's who have lost their children

- Mothers whose children cannot (or will not) come celebrate like in years past

- Single mothers whose kids may not have father figures to orchestrate the celebrations that young kids cannot wing on their own 

- People who are struggling to care for and celebrate their mothers

- Women who wanted to, be could not become mothers