There are a lot of things that I take for granted which are a big deal for Mary Elizabeth. On Sunday afternoon, after a lot of thoughtful consideration, Mary Elizabeth drove her car. Just for a short while in a deserted parking lot – but she got behind the wheel and for the first time…
Yesterday, I found myself working at home and was able to accompany Mary Elizabeth to her speech therapy appointment at the local university. She’s been going to the speech department there for about a year, and while I’ve gone with her to some of the group activities, I’ve never been to an individual speech therapy…
Today I saw along with everybody else the news that Gabby Giffords resigned from congress to focus on her recovery from being shot in the head a year ago. In many ways, her recovery felt very familiar to us, which shouldn’t be too surprising since both Mary Elizabeth’s and Rep. Giffords’ cases involve recovering from…
Hearts have been on my mind a lot recently – especially since mine was recently examined up close and found to be in great shape after an initial scare. We also attended a wonderful wedding in November where the song “One Hand, One Heart” from Westside Story was beautifully and lovingly performed and has stuck…
The second anniversary of Mary Elizabeth’s stroke was yesterday, and I meant to post something, but as you all know I’ve been busy compiling and writing a longer version of this blog with the aim of publishing it at some point.
I’ve posted a few times about feeling like I was mourning the loss of the old Mary Elizabeth and our life before her stroke. It felt good to type it out loud, and was I’m sure therapeutic to acknowledge the loss. But it was of course confusing to grieve for somebody who was still very…
As some of you know, I was given up for adoption at birth. I always knew I was adopted and had constructed scenarios over the years about who my birth family was, and what the circumstances were that made them give me away. I never felt badly about being adopted, but the irony wasn’t lost…
Perspective can be a funny thing. Since Mary Elizabeth’s stroke in December 2009, I was focused first on her survival, then her recovery and now her adjustment to daily life. Every day, I looked for changes. Had she gotten better? Had she gotten worse? Was there a trend? In the last few weeks I’ve been…
Many years ago – long before I met Mary Elizabeth – I used to drive out west every summer and go camping in and around the mountains of Wyoming and Montana. I remember the first time I went to Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains in 1986. Simon, David and I – along with all our gear –…
Hurricane Irene came barging into Long Island early on Sunday morning and while we’re safe and sound, there’s a lot of mayhem in her wake. We went to bed on Saturday night, the kids in our room in sleeping bags with flashlights at the ready – and drifted off to sleep with the news people…
Moved in Sundry Places 