She Was Glowing. And So Was I.

Last week we was the end of my middle daughter Norah’s first semester as a freshman. She came to me with a glowing pride, a notebook in hand, where she’d written down all her grades for each class. She stood there in a green hoodie sporting a frog on a skateboard, and baggy 90s style jeans, as a reviewed her grades.

Straight A’s. As her father, I thought about her sitting at our kitchen table, reading books, and working diligently. I thought about her English class, where she was struggling, so I agreed to read the assigned texts with her, so I could help. I thought about her sitting next to her mother, working though math and science problems because those are really more her mother’s strength.

And then I thought about my freshman year of high school. My father had been in and out of my life due to drug addiction. My mother and I weren’t really speaking. I’d left home at 14, and eventually moved in with my grandmother, who was in her late 70s, and to be honest, I don’t know if she ever finished high school.