This summer, when our family was on vacation in a foreign country, one of my children came down with a virus. She was feverish and dizzy and felt terrible — and I could feel my own anxiety spiking. When she woke up in the night I sat with her,...
We all like to think we have some control over our lives. Maybe that's why "cancer battle" language is so widespread in popular culture....
Like a bear in winter, I’ve been in a version of hibernation these days. It’s as if Ingrid Michaelson is seeing directly into my soul with her song “Keep Breathing,” which includes the lyrics: “I want to change the world. Instead, I sleep.” Mastering sloth mode (as a friend...
Last week, on the same day that several kids at my older daughter’s Wisconsin soccer camp were ill from heat exhaustion, I had a phone call with my stepmother in California, where the Dixie fire had been spreading. Though it wasn’t yet close to where she and my father...
The toothache began one day in March, a dull but pesky pain concentrated in my lower right molars. I paused, mid-chew, surprised by the sensation. Unlike other parts of my body, my teeth have always been a reliable entity. When I was younger, my mom told me I was...
