Sometimes I try to connect the dots between disconnected bits of information I collect during the day, trying to make a pattern like forming a constellation with random stars.

The bits I see today are various stories covering the wide gamut of motherhood. In the middle of the spectrum is a friend from work who bruised her wrist trying to teach her little son how to ice skate. He did fine but she kept falling down. He took her hand, saying, “Mommy, don’t be afraid.” This is normal, daily bread sort of motherhood, the kind I am accustomed to.

On the dark side of the spectrum was a story I ran across accidentally on a news site. I’m sorry to say that if I see a headline about a dead baby, I can’t stop myself from clicking on it, even though I’ll regret it for days. This story was about a baby who was left in his car seat for 8 days straight and died from an infection caused by his own soiled diaper. I don’t know what do to with that kind of information, so today I am tucking it into my collection of random events.

On the brightest side of the spectrum is another story, this one heard on NPR on my drive home, about a mother in China who goes to school with her daughter everyday so she can hold the girl up to use the bathroom. The 12-year-old lost both her legs last year in an earthquake that flattened her school, so now the girl and her mother spend their days at a remote, temporary school in sterile housing. The girl can’t go back to her home in the mountains because she can’t navigate there, and her mother has given up everything to care for her as she continues her schooling among strangers.

So how are these stories connected, other than the fact that they all involve mothers and children in various of stages of neglect, nurture and sacrifice? I feel these events, or something close to them, are happening at this moment in billions of houses across the wide world