Posts I Didn't Write

I've been so busy I haven't been able to do some of the writing I'd like, so I decided to write a post about the things I would have written if I'd had the time.

An experience with illness
I really wanted to write about an early, formative experience with illness. What was it? When I was a girl my mother had a good friend that we called Auntie Dorothy (she wasn't really an aunt, but my family has always had a very liberal definition of extended family). Auntie Dorothy had breast cancer back in the days when breast cancer was the #1 killer of women and research was in its nascent stages. What I remember most is that when she came to visit us (as she did every Christmas to spend the season with us and to visit her doctors), she'd always brush and braid my long hair. She did it because she said it was a good post-masectomy exercise. All I knew was that I loved having someone else brush my hair.

This I Believe
You have no idea how much I've been wanting to write one of these essays! But for now a brief what if? will have to do.

I've been mulling a few ideas. One is on love. I believe love is a gift that we must bestow upon others. It can't be hoarded like a miser's gold. It must be given away.

But I also want to write an essay that starts with the claim I believe in sex education. Because I do, especially now that I am a parent. Why? As a parent of course I want to help my child through all of the big decisions, but the truth is when my kids need to make the really big decisions--like whether or not to smoke, and certainly whether or not to have sex--I won't be there. As a parent, you've got to trust your kids to make the right decisions, and that means empowering them by giving them the knowledge to choose wisely.