Happy Birthday, Jessica!
For my beautiful daughter —
Thank you for teaching me the meaning of joy.
Similar Posts
On how to see
I am doing an in-person interview because the editor who has hired me to write the piece I’m working on prefers her writers to do in-person interviews. This is important only because while I understand the point—it helps build rapport with someone you are about to ask a bunch of very personal questions—I am thinking…
A conversation with . . . Jennifer?
Find me over at my colleague Denise Schipani’s blog today. The conversation may be with me but you can imagine who we’re talking about!
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…
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…
For Jessica
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about a study she’d just read, which concluded that people without children were happier than people with children; or, to put it more precisely, despite what conventional wisdom holds, the study found that having children did not increase anyone’s happiness. At which…
On Halloween decorations
This is a Halloween essay from 2011. This weekend, at Jessica’s behest, we decorated the house for Halloween. Now, at your house, Halloween may be all black and orange and eerie music, but at our house, it is quite pink and sparkly. The witch’s broom glitters, and the pumpkin has a cheerful smile, and…