On using a knife and fork

Jessica’s last day of school is really just a last morning of school, so when I pick her up, the whole day stretches ahead of us.

“How about lunch in Lawrence?” I say.

“Yes.” She is without hesitation. Jessica is a girl who likes lunch. “Where?”

“Let’s go to Encore,” I say. “They have those bento boxes at lunchtime. I love eating my meal out of little compartments.”

She shakes her head. When we arrive at the restaurant, she does not order a bento box; she orders a regular meal.

“Junior year is done!” I marvel. “You’re officially a senior now.”

“Can you believe it?” she says, like a ritual response. I have been saying, “I can’t believe you’re going to be a senior” for about three months now.

“No, I cannot.”

Our meals come. She hesitates, then picks up her knife and her fork. I bite down on the offer I am about to make. She cuts her meal into pieces without any help.

It is the first time in her life that she has ever been able to do this. Usually there comes a time when the need to use both hands at once defeats her, when her shoulders sag and I pick up the knife without a comment. But not today. When she is finished, she is proud and relieved. I know I need to say something because it is a big deal, but it has to be the right thing. She knows that other people could manage this when they were five years old. But she is not other people.

And she knows that in a few years the disease she has might steal away this small triumph and I will be back to cutting her meals up for her. No victory, whatever the cost, is permanent. But that does not mean they are pointless or we should not celebrate them.

“Good work,” I say, and she smiles.

Just yesterday I sat on the front porch, a notebook balanced on my knees, wondering why I am still trying to learn to write, thinking of all the people who do it so much better than I do. I will never achieve what they have achieved and why—at my age!—do I even bother? I am not even talking about praise and reward. I am talking about craft. What if I had not decided that I would be a writer when I was five years old? What if I had chosen another road, and found the thing I am better suited for? I would be a lot less frustrated, I can tell you that.

But drinking my jasmine tea across the table from my daughter, I know the truth is that we are each on our own journeys. The suffering comes when we think our journey should be like someone else’s.

She does not order dessert. She knows when to be satisfied. Maybe tomorrow. But right now, what she has done is enough.

###