There is a reason why I never speak about Lizzy and Cecilia’s father. For most of Lizzy’s life I was trapped in a broken marriage with someone who never wanted to be a husband or a father. As a result, I was a single mother to Lizzy while I was still married and a divorced…
This past year has been the busiest of my life with a new marriage, pregnancy, full-time graduate school, multiple moves, homeschooling a new stepson, and approaching the date of finally getting Cece’s service dog. It has been hard to find time to write this calendar year, hard to process all of the changes that seem…
Look at where you areLook at where you startedThe fact that you’re alive is a miracleJust stay alive, that would be enough – “That Would Be Enough”, Hamilton Scarcely a month after Cecilia was born, I texted my big sister that just because Cece isn’t Lizzy doesn’t mean that she’s any less worth dedicating my…
February 7, 2021 Dear Lizzy, It’s been snowing a lot this winter. This morning, Cece and I awoke to the hushed weight of snow blanketing the skylight above our bed. I opened the window blinds and the trees were dusted in snow everywhere you looked. There’s nothing like the feeling in your throat and your…
If I could show you your first snowfall: a holly tree shrugging white shoulders, a cardinal plucking blushing berries; If I could show you our chickens standing sentinel before their snowy coop or two fawns lift still and silent heads, heralds of a hungry winter; If I could show you snowy branches like ivory arrows…
I remember being enamored in my undergraduate days with the philosophy of beauty for beauty’s sake. I was undeniably drawn to the idea that beauty had inherent worth despite its alleged lack of utilitarian value. I even disputed this idea, arguing that beauty as a psychological construct serves to orient volition towards the good, as…
As parents, we all like to believe that we don’t play favorites or occasionally misread our children or once in a while get too occupied with our own priorities and accidentally ignore something momentous to our children. We’d feel better about ourselves at night if we could manage to convince ourselves during the day that…
Two years ago, I nursed a one-year old Lizzy to sleep on the couch next to me while my then-husband and I watched a new sci-fi movie called Arrival. The movie flips conventional alien films on their head by portraying that aliens arrive peacefully in order to give a tool–not a weapon–to humanity because, in…
The day before yesterday, Cecilia, my father, and myself spent the day at NIH’s Eye Institute having our worst fears about Cecilia’s lack of vision confirmed. The NIH physician-scientists were very gentle, very kind, and very thorough. After reading through the records from the long string of doctors Cecilia has been to in her very…
When I walked out of Children’s Hospital the day we turned off Lizzy’s life support machine, I said to my little sister, “I never want to see this place again.” Then Cecilia moved inside of me. I paused, then qualified my statement: “Unless, of course, Cecilia ever needed it.” Two weeks ago, I found myself…