Happy Birthday, Jessica!
For my beautiful daughter —
Thank you for teaching me the meaning of joy.
Similar Posts
On the trouble with the truth
I am looking at the neurosurgeon’s business card. I’m supposed to call the number this morning to schedule Jessica’s surgery. I will talk to June, whom I have talked to before, and she will be very kind, and it will be very easy, in the sense that she will not be a pain in the…
On thinking better thoughts
I am having a bad day. A hard day, following a hard week, in the middle of a hard month. We’re all having days like these, I’m sure, when our usual balms aren’t available. We can’t meet friends for drinks after work, or go to a movie, or run to the gym and punch a…
On the appointed one
Jessica and I are snowed in, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix, sitting on the lime-green sofa and laying bets on whether there really will be six more weeks of winter, when she says, “Remind me who the acquainted one is.” “The who?” I ask. She points to the laptop and Buffy, and I…
On what life teaches us
A friend of mine has been diagnosed with one of those diseases that could kill him in a month or it might hold off for a while. Understandably he has been thrown by this, the uncertainty as much as the diagnosis. How do you live when you know the end is coming, but you don’t…
Talking to strangers
I wrote this essay about five years ago, and reading it today, realized how much it still captures who Jessica is and what my life with her is like. I hope you enjoy — My eight-year-old daughter Jessica is a friendly soul. From the time she was tiny, she would march right up to strangers…
Reading Harry Potter
Last fall, Jessica stopped being very interested in reading. Although she’s a slow reader and behind her grade level, this was the first time her reading had started to seem like a struggle to her, and the first time her learning difficulties were winning. The problem, like most problems, was multifaceted. But mostly she just…