We Came From Her Leg

What’s on my mind? If you missed my Oct. 8 post titled Where Did We Come From?  I hope you’ll read it before this follow-up.

For one thing, my pal Lorna Blake wrote: “My precocious eldest asked a variation of the same question when she was 5. I don’t know what she expected, but after I honestly replied, she said, ‘That’s ridiculous!’ and walked away.” 

For another, the Modern Love section of this morning’s New York Times now offers Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words. My favorite?  

We Came From Her Leg, by reader Nancy Shayne:

“I sit in my mother’s bed in Michigan. She asks, ‘How did I make you?’ Her eyes are fresh flowers. Her thin arms are stems. ‘I came from your leg,’ I answer. She has a long scar above her knee from an old accident. When we were young, she convinced my three sisters and me that this was how we were born. I run to the fridge before we continue our game. Nothing is there but a box, her hospice package. Morphine and pills. She has dementia and doesn’t know she’s dying. I do. Brave for love, I walk back in.”

© The New York Times and Nancy Shayne, with commentary by Nicole Parton, 2020