Short story accepted

My short story, "Call Your Mother," has been accepted for the Mother's Day edition of the online mag Literary Mama.

Literary Mama is a good publication, close to the bone, not the sunshine-and-daisies motherhood that disappeared 50 years ago if it ever existed.

I was wondering about motherly perfection during Holy Week. Motherhood is hard, because youth is dangerous, and there are so many opportunities for the kids to destroy themselves, and they get so tired of all our warnings and the benefit of our experience. I wouldn't trade my daughters for anything, but motherhood can be tooth-rattlingly painful, and the moments of guilt and fear can rise up and overwhelm the longer times of warmth and cooperation.

And so I was envying the apparently easy relationships I saw around me--wise parents, cooperative kids--but it was Holy Friday, and we were singing, "Do not lament me, Mother," and I realized that even if the kid is perfect and the mother is the best human being who ever lived, the relationship is still painful--maybe more so, because there's an anguish that lies at the heart of love, that tests it, proves it, refines it.

But I was talking about Literary Mama and "Call Your Mother." I'll post the link when it appears.