Jenny Bondurant

After grad school, I worked from home because I wanted it all. I worked before my sons got up and after they went to bed, through naps, and I multi-tasked through play times. When my sister died, I knew this path was the right one. My nieces lived with their dad but spent their days at our house because I was there. Two small kids in my arms became four, and then five with the birth of my daughter. I did it all – work-at-home-mom – because I could, and life was messy, hard, blessed, and full. A couple of years later, my work-from-home freedom let me be there when my friend’s seven-year-old son was sick with cancer. At the end, we took turns staying up all night, caring for him through a journey out of our hands, and I learned the sound a woman makes when she holds her child as he takes in his last breath is the same sound she makes when a baby is born, a tearing from one world into another. My kids are all in school now, and I’m in an office every day. After two years, I still have separation anxiety. I don’t know what is right or wrong about raising kids or how to be a woman with a career. All I know is that you show up one place or the other because someone needs you, and life always has something to teach you.