Her story is as old as the hills and common as grass. She was "illegitimate" - such a punitive word for the innocent; suffer the little children... Though common her story is unusual in its own way. After all, how many people in this world aren't who they think they are. Since the beginning of time mothers have posed as aunts, sisters, and cousins to disguise the advent of a surprise baby. Many infants are kicked out of the nest into the arms of fate, some cherished, some not. Oldest story in the human race; man's inhumanity to women, the lament of the vulnerable. Pain inflicted by civilization cowering under the veneer of respectability. The illegitimate, the walking wounded are legion. This is only the story of one.

In my mind they are inextricably linked, my mother and my country/my country, my mother. To think of one is to think of the other. To be with one is to be with the other. If one of them ceased to exist for whatever reason, what would become of the other as it related to me? This question has bounced around my subconscious and unmoored me for longer than I care to remember. I always knew I'd have to answer it. And then my mother died...