Bone Mother

Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “Bone Mother” by Danna D. Schmidt. Danna is a ceremonialist and Medical Aid in Dying mixologist living in Seattle. Her writing has appeared in The Sun magazine, Okay Donkey, and Bending Genres. She’s working on a speculative memoir about family secrets, the prices we pay to keep them, and the power of wishcrafting to shapeshift our lives.Subscribe now“We are all children of blood and bone. All instruments of vengeance and virtue.This truth holds me close, rocking me like a child in a mother’s arms.”Tomi AdeyemiI remember the numbness when she died. It floated down on me from the dark December sky as a gossamer cloak. One day she was there in the outer spheres of my life, and the next day she was gone forever.To speak of my birth mother, I must explain the hunger that lives inside me. My hunger was once a small seed of longing, she blew out onto the wind with the stork all those moons…