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"Visiting Her In Queens Is More Enlightening Than A Month In A Monastery In Tibet" by Michael Mark For the fourth time my mother asks, “How many children do you have?” I’m beginning to believe my answer, “Two, Mom,” is wrong. Maybe the lesson is they are not mine, not owned by me, and she is teaching me about my relationship with her. I wash my dish and hers. She washes them again. I ask why. She asks why I care. Before bed she unlocks and opens the front door. While she sleeps, I close and lock it. She gets up. Unlocks it. “What I have, no one wants,” she says. I nod. She nods. Are we agreeing? My shrunken guru says she was up all night preparing a salad for my breakfast. She serves me an onion. I want her to make French toast for me like she used to. I want to tell her about my pain, and I want her to make it go away. I want the present to be as good as the past she does not remember. I toast white bread for her, butter it, cut it in half. I eat a piece of onion. She asks me why I’m crying.