The first texts to say she's exhausted because she had a job interview last night and they gave her an assignment due Friday and she has plans every night after work so not sure how she will finish ... and just needs you to proofread the submission ... 

and the second texts a few minutes later to say she JUST finished her last final and is halfway through college, elated ... and just needs you to zelle a third of the cost of her flight change to get home earlier to, in turn, get to her internship in LA sooner ... 

and the third texts (no joke) a few minutes thereafter to say she has a roommate (yay!) and just needs you to zelle for the housing deposit stat ... and you feel the doughty words behind her words: relief, possibility, excitement, the miraculous engine that is her mind revving, the vulnerable portal that is her heart opening ...  

and you respond to each, reveling in your maternal part, grateful to be there for them while taking a beat, a lacuna for languor (so you thought), because you had knee surgery Monday (torn meniscus with root repair) and your leg is unrecognizable, swollen and bruised even though you're diligently following RICE therapy protocol while taking your prescribed meds ...

and you're reminded by their serial texts in a single morning ... 

that life IS change and change IS good and growth IS scary, but they learned, somehow, undoubtedly through the hardest parts, that yes change is constant but so are we ... 

and that everything will be okay. 

You say this to yourself that same morning, right after you hang up the phone with the surgeon's assistant, having been told that your symptoms -- including your disconcerting and unsightly cankle -- are normal and temporary. 'Just keep pumping the gas pedals,"* he says, before reminding you (he couldn't resist) that you "will no longer be a runner." He's the third medical professional to say this to you -- the first back in 2008, then another in 2013 when you injured your then-bad-now-good knee. 

"Understood," you say, even though you know the admonition will be wrong again. 

Because one's will -- my will, their will -- is not inclined to throw in the towel, no matter the obstacles life lobs in our direction. 








 

Asking for a friend. 

She walked into my office to make a prosaic point, to let me know: I'm approving your time-off requests!

Great, I say, thank you!

What are your plans? She asks, all normal-lite.

Whelp, you know, taking my youngest to see my oldest in NYC (because my middle will be in LA for a summer internship in post-production/her dream) and then a family wedding on the East Coast, followed by a college reunion in Chicago.  

Are you taking your daughter back to college? (This seems like a Q-lite, but trust me when I tell you, it's not.) 

That's the plan, I say, as tears surge up behind my eyes, pour forth and spill down my cheeks in record time. 

Her only child (so far) is three years old. She understandably starts to back out of my office. 

It gets easier, I want to tell her.  But it doesn't. It gets harder AND better AND far more consequential. 

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