My and my daughter’s birthdays are only a few weeks apart. When she turned twelve last month I took her to lunch and we asked each other what we wanted for our next year. Nimaya said immediately that she wanted to do something every day that scared her, and we agreed to do just that for the next year.

Every day since, she asks me when I pick her up from school, “So, Mom, what scary thing did you do today?” and then she shares hers. One day she went up a high ladder onto the roof at school, and one day she told the truth to a friend even though she feared it might hurt her feelings. This morning she had acupuncture for the first time and smiled broadly because she was doing her “scary thing” before 9:30 AM. “This is going to be a great day!” she beamed. Continue reading →

I have had well over a dozen surgeries on my face in the last decade, but today I wept as my doctor took a small biopsy from between my eye and my nose. I didn’t weep because of the pain, and I didn’t weep because I feared disfigurement. I wept because I was alone. It is not the first time I have been alone during surgery either, but now, softened up by loss and meditation, I cried like a four-year-old, wanting comfort, wanting a shoulder to lean on and a loving eye upon me as I endured another shot and incision in my face. Continue reading →