The Giant Gold Paper Clip

Dear Mom,



I know, I know... it's the Sunday before Labor Day and instead of going to the pool, I went to work. As I attempted to rearrange my desk for the 100th time, I found that gigantic gold paper clip you used to hold all your papers together for school. Despite the fact that I think it's the most ridiculous-looking office supply I've ever seen in my life, I decided to use it to hold together all my freshman orientation notes. As I suspected, it doesn't really do its job very well and when I pulled it off to try and get to some of my notes, it ripped the top page of my little paper bundle. I wonder if you had this same problem.


Hollis and I have started shaking cans full of coins at Maggie when she misbehaves. I didn't fully believe you when you told us about her infrequent, yet serious, inter-dog aggression but you were right. It's an issue. She almost bit a man who was jogging past me at 5:30 in the morning the other day. The man, jarred and obviously scared, just kept running and there I was dressed in my pajamas with a bag of steaming shit in one hand and this vicious animal leashed to my other. As I scolded her, I started crying. I didn't know what I was doing. I felt like a mom without answers or patience or a brain cell left in my head and all I wanted in that moment was you. I walked home, absurdly dressed, tears streaming down my face, firmly explaining to Maggie why her behavior was unacceptable. I don't think she understood me.

I walked in the house, poured myself a cup of coffee, and tried to picture myself as a mother of an actual human being. Besides the fact that the whole idea is absolutely terrifying, I kept thinking about the whole giving birth part and thought, "How in the hell would I EVER get through something like that without Mom there?" As fragile as you often appeared, you were physically stronger than people knew. Or at least until the end. I still don't understand what happened, Mom. What went wrong? Do you want me to keep trying to understand? You would have wanted to understand it with exact scientific precision and I've tried to put the puzzle together but there are still so many missing pieces.

So here I am. I'm writing to you. Get back to me about the paper clip, ok?