Tag Archives: scarlett letters

My Birthday Girl

Dear Scarlett,
It’s your birthday and I am using this space for your birthday letter, a letter I used to post each year on a blog I wrote just for you. Life gets complicated, baby, and these days, most of the notes and letters I write to you are private. Today, I’m posting your letter here, so that I can share my thoughts on you turning 5 with a larger group of people. And because I always love to celebrate you.

Last night, you and Daddy and I sat at the dinner table and talked about all of your birthdays. Your first, when you had the hairstyle of an aging CEO, and you ate carrot cake and bounced to Beyoncé in the living room. Your second, when we started our tradition of filling the kitchen with balloons and presents. My ALS hadn’t been officially diagnosed, but we knew it was a possibility. That day, you and I took our first cable car ride together. The city rose and dipped around us, but we sat steady on a bench, holding hands and blinking against the glittering buildings. You were wearing butterfly wings.

On your 3rd birthday, we had a real party for you and your friends. Your amazing music teacher performed, and she ended the show with We’re Going to be Friends by The White Stripes, your favorite song at the time. I was limping, even in ankle braces, and I broke the news of my ALS to more than one curious parent that day. Read More>

|Categories: Life | Tags: , | Permalink

Blogger Girl

I’ve been blogging since 2007. That’s the year I started Deepish Thoughts, a site to keep friends and family up to date on my life, as well as on the bizarre and hilarious things Rob said. Which were many. When Scarlett was born in 2010, I shifted my attention to The Scarlett Letters, where I posted pictures and wrote to her about her life. And now, obviously, I’ve moved here to record my thoughts and experiences living with ALS.

I can’t keep up with two blogs, let alone three, so each time a new blog is introduced, an old one gets ignored. Or, let’s say it gets its wings, because that just sounds nicer. The blogs mark everything significant that has happened in my life over the course of more than seven years. Engagement, marriage, cross-country move, baby. The death of my beloved Papa, my dear brother-in-law, and several pets. It’s just a life, like any other. But I’m glad, now more than ever, that I chronicled it.

My story, with its unexpected trajectory, might make some people sad. But not me. I look back at those old posts and sometimes I just laugh. As I read about the traveling I’ve done, I find that I’m not mourning the loss of my abilities. Instead, I’m feeling insanely lucky to have seen so many different places. It appears that my past—at least the past I’ve chosen to document, and this is an important distinction—makes me happy. Though I’m not proud of all of it. Read More>

|Categories: Age, Diagnosis, Life, Parenting, Relationships | Tags: , , , | Permalink