For Mother's Day 2026, many Mom memories from Doug Bradley, Greg Drew, and, yes, Bruce Springsteen

May 10, 2026

Just in time for Mother's Day 2026, our friend and Letters To You contributor Doug Bradley has published his latest book, All the Books She Never Wrote. It's a unique memoir about the special time that Doug got to spend with his mother, Lucy Bradley, in her final days.

A few weeks after her ninety-ninth birthday, Lucy decided she was ready to die. After a series of health setbacks, she stopped eating, certain the end would come quickly. Instead, her extended goodbye stretched on seven unexpected weeks.

Doug stayed with her, keeping vigil, never knowing which shared moment might be the last. Early on, Lucy made a simple request: “Read me our story.” A lifelong lover of mysteries, she wanted Doug to read — and finally finish — the novel, Saints and Sinners, that they had begun together years earlier.

As he read aloud from Saints and Sinners, the room filled with more than words. The story opened into memory and silence, humor and sorrow. In the steady rhythm of reading, mother and son found a way to be together — to remember, to forgive, to let go — and to face what was coming without turning away.

All the Books She Never Wrote is a son’s love letter to his mother and a meditation on the long leave-taking that so many families know. Tender, unsentimental, and deeply humane, it affirms the enduring bond between mothers and sons and argues, gently but firmly, for honoring the way our loved ones choose to end their stories.

Click here to learn more about All the Books She Never Wrote, get a free sample of the book's first three chapters, and/or order your copy.

Click here to read "Mother and I never finished that book," Doug Bradley's just-published Wisconsin State Journal essay about his struggle to finish All the Books She Never Wrote while recovering from a stroke.

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And if you haven't read it yet, or just want to enjoy it again this Mother's Day Weekend, click here to read Greg Drew's Mother's Day 2025 essay for Letters To You, "'Don't mess with my mom, Dave; she knows this stuff...' - Greg Drew shares memories for Mother's Day."

Finally, as we fondly remember another very special mother indeed - the late, great Adele Springsteen, whose birthday fittingly occurs in the same month as Mother's Day - we recall these words spoken nightly by Bruce Springsteen during Springsteen On Broadway, and how the spirit of Adele Springsteen very much infuses the purpose behind her son's current Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour:

"Remember that the future is not yet written, so when things look dark, do as my MIGHTY Mom would insist. Lace up your dancing shoes, and get to work!"

Happy Mother's Day to all of the great, beloved Moms out there, past and present.