My parents are the last of the middle class. My father worked for the government designing sea mines. My mother was a substitute teacher. Together, they worked really only until they were sixty.

Her voice was perfect, custom-made for my ears. I wanted to hit the record button in my brain and save this all for later. Half of me was listening to her words, but the other half was mesmerized by the melody.

God blessed me with two unbelievable parents, and I am just like both of them. I have the smile and charisma of my mother and the big heart of my mom, because she wants to save the world and help the world, so I am just like her.

Sometimes it's better to live without a mother than not to live at all.

Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye played my parents so well that I really thought I was in my living room at Christmas. My mother couldn't have been played more correctly.

May each of us remember this truth; 'one cannot forget mother and remember God. One cannot remember mother and forget God.' Why? Because these two sacred persons, God and mother, partners in creation, in love, in sacrifice, in service, are as one.

Every Mother Counts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother. We inform, engage, and mobilize audiences to take action and raise funds that support maternal health programs around the world.

Don’t even talk to me about being a mother. You were never a mother! Just the psychotic twat I lived with for the first fourteen years.

The first thing I tried to do in the months after losing my mother was to write a poem. I found myself turning to poetry in the way so many people do - to make sense of losses. And I wrote pretty bad poems about it. But it did feel that the poem was the only place that could hold this grief.

And even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair.