Happy Birthday, Jessica!
For my beautiful daughter —
Thank you for teaching me the meaning of joy.
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On the difference between reality and fiction
Jessica is my biggest fan, and she thinks it is very wonderful when I write a book, and even more so when it gets published, and not just because I take her out to dinner to celebrate. But she cannot understand why I am so mean to my characters. She thinks that the best story…
On what a true gift is
So Jessica is off to be with her father for a few days and though I do not immediately close the door behind her and yell “Yee-haw!” before laying in supplies of 1800, I would be lying if I said I don’t adore having some time and space to myself. I would also be lying if I did…
On how we wait
Jessica has just come home from her father’s house, and I have already had her lecture on my terrible eating habits (“I made you a menu,” she has informed me. “Why did you eat popcorn and cookies all week?”) and already she has drawn up a new menu full of healthful foods and we have…
Jessica’s Story
I wrote this essay five years ago, when I first discovered the story that Jessica tells herself about her life–apropos of last week’s post on the most important story you’ll ever tell. *** “Where is your scar, Mama?” Jessica asks as she brushes her short brown hair. We’re in the bathroom. I elbow her out…
After the diagnosis
In the blog comments on Rethinking what you believe, a writer, Rebecca, says, “With the initial wound of the TSC [tuberous sclerosis complex] diagnosis still fresh for us, I have shied away from examining any belief. Because, frankly, anything I have ever believed about this world now seems a fallacy.” When Jessica was born, I…