This episode contains themes of suicide. If you or someone you know is considering suicide,

please call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline.

My mom and dad separated when I was about a year old.

Shortly after that, my mother's father died by suicide. So it was not an easy time for my

mother who was such a new mother. She and I were living in New York and it was just the two of us.

Although I know it was difficult for my mom and even though I was just a little baby,

I think our connection was a bit of a lifesaver for her at this difficult time.

And of course, she was my whole world. We were a duo.

Sometimes my grandma, Dee Dee was a part of the scene. She helped my mother to take care of me.

Though in a way, Dee Dee needed taking care of too, but that's a story for another time.

My grandmother, whose real name was Grace, was one of five sisters, including

Murna, Francis, Dorothy, and Little Joe. I know it sounds like I'm confusing my family with little

women or something, but those are their actual names. The mother of these five girls was my great

grandmother, Bessie. That is a big load of fabulous old-timey lady names, right? Bessie, Dorothy,

Murna, Francis, Grace, and Little Joe. I mean, Jesus, it's fucking grapes of wrath over there.

And from all accounts, Bessie wasn't the greatest mother. So Murna, the eldest daughter,

kind of took over in that regard. And in my mind, it's always been this kind of village of women

scraping it together in the 1920s with Murna as a surrogate mother. So I've been thinking about

the mother daughter Bond in its many, many guises, birth mother, adopted mother, foster mother,

surrogate mother, because you have to be stepmother. I have a stepmother whom I completely adore,

by the way. It is a unique and fascinating bond, even when it isn't working particularly well.

And it's somehow different from the mother's son Bond, the one that I have with my two

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