Natalie, at 19 months is determined to swim on her own. She fights my hold on her, kicks, flails her arms, and she imagines that she will swim just like Anna. And yet the moment I let go, she sinks. I watch her body slip just below the surface of the water, and then I [...]

As I write, I’m surrounded by half-packed boxes of books and the chaos of our dismantled home. Where there were photos, there are only empty nails. Friends come through the house, sizing up our furniture to see what will fit in their home. Freda has been adopted out, half-used medicines left in a plastic bag [...]

One of Anna’s best friends from Chicago came to visit. Anna and Haru haven’t seen each other since they were three, but they’ve known each other since before they could walk. Although both are intense in their own way, they got on beautifully, as they did when they were tiny. Haru still talks about the [...]

My mom said it best, “For Natalie,” she said, “Life is a bowl of cherries.” Natalie continues to explore life with great eagerness and enthusiasm, if not grace. These days, every time I turn around she has climbed onto the kitchen table, and is standing there with a marker in one hand and paper in [...]

Photo by Amber–I’m with Natalie, my fearless traveling companion, on a black sand beach. You can’t see it in the photo, but there is huge sea turtle lounging on the sand just behind me.I keep going back to an article in The Sun Magazine (December, 2007)by Heather Sellers, reflecting on her writing mentor, English professor [...]