At a stoplight on our way to school, Adam looks at me, his expression all tenderness, and reaches over to flick my ears.  He leans across my field of vision, glancing pointedly toward the red light before beginning to rhythmically bend and release the tops of my ears, sometimes tugging lightly on the lobes and […]

Out of the corner of my eye, I see them kneeling in front of my son, knees pressed hard into the floor right there in front of the chair where Adam sits waiting for me, glancing at his watch.  I’m too far away to hear them, but I can tell that they’re talking to him, […]

They cast a long shadow on the lawn, all legs, son in so many ways like his father.  It’s striking.  Nothing really prepares a mother for the moments when she looks at her children and sees something of the adults they’re becoming, the careful sculpting of the future.  No matter how broad those shoulders get, I […]

I recognize the symbol immediately–the faded rainbow lines tattooed onto the back of her neck, the needle-pieced, needle-etched shape of just one part of a global puzzle.  The top edge of her taffy-pink scrubs hides most of the word beneath, but I can barely make out the upper third of the black script letter ‘A.’ […]