David Sedaris, on his mother's lung cancer.

Writer David Sedaris remembers the days his mother and sister played armchair detective, and the odd crime wave that hit their own home. This story, titled "True Detective," appears in David's book Naked.

David Rakoff tells the story of a contract between a son and his visiting mother. David Rakoff is the author of several books including Half Empty.

David Rakoff tells the story of a contract between a son and his visiting mother. David Rakoff is the author of several books including Don't Get Too Comfortable.

Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years.

Contributor Samuel James thought he knew what happened to his mother. But he was wrong.

Joshuah Bearman tells a story that’s a sequel to his memorable episode about his mother and half-brother David. It’s done onstage as a play that’s structured like a radio documentary, with Josh Hamilton playing Joshuah, and James Ransone playing his brother.

David Wilcox tells the story of how his mother, who was dying of lung cancer, made a short videotape for his sister, who is severely developmentally disabled. She hoped the tape would become a daily part of her daughter's life, like the other music and movies she liked to play, that she would watch it and remember her mother.

Host Ira Glass talks about trying to figure out what to say to his dying mom. He's sure that someday he'll wish he said something different than what he actually said.

Ira reads an excerpt from James Ellroy's memoir My Dark Places.

Genevieve Jurgensen and her husband Laurent lost their two daughters—Elise and Mathilde—at the ages of 4 and 7. Actress Felicity Jones reads from her book The Disappearance: A Memoir of Loss, in which Jurgensen tries to explain their lives and their deaths to a friend, in a series of letters.

Diane Wu has the story of a woman who goes to South Korea to meet her birth mother, a trip that lets her visit one of the other worlds in which she almost lived.

Host Ira Glass talks to Amanda, who's 16 and lives with her mom in a Christian commune in Chicago.

Producer Alex Blumberg conducts an investigation, perhaps the first ever, into this American subspecies: People who compulsively imitate their mother's voices in everyday conversation, well into adulthood.

When Dave Hill was in his late 20s and still basically living at home, he hung out with his mom a lot. But once she used particularly sneaky tactics to get him to attend a church fundraiser.

Sketches from the neo-futurists on the subject of double lives.

Comedian Zarna Garg tells jokes onstage about the extreme ways she tries to control her daughter Zoya’s life.

Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells the story of a woman who wants to know why she was taken away from her mom as a kid. A version of this story is in Eleanor’s book Stop Being Reasonable: How We Really Change Our Minds.