Catherine Gigante-Brown

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions wasn't your typical cutesie baby fare. It was raw, real—and unabashedly funny.

When David was about 12, he told me that he wanted to take the train to school alone. My gut reaction was, “No way in hell!” I mean, we live in a safe neighborhood and all, but David has ADHD and was easily distracted. What if he missed his stop? What if someone messed with him?

erotic. intimate. unapologetic.

That’s the thing about being a breast cancer survivor — it’s always there: it never goes away. The scars, the fear that lurks in the back of your mind like a boogeyman. You’re going along nicely, living your merry life, and you’re fine, until you’re not.

You learn a lot about people when you live in their home. The Taylors seemed to lead a joyless, Spartan existence.

BCBs are loud and proud and refuse to go down easy. And quietly. We have things to say. We have things to teach. We still have life to live. And damn it, we are and we will. With one breast. With no breasts. With reconstruction surgery.

I immediately developed a hot-and-heavy girlcrush on the wild, wacky, brash, candid, feminist, rubber-faced comedian—and you should too.

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

"Remember, this isn’t just happening to you, it’s happening to moms everywhere. It’s not your fault — "