Rose's Cantina

This essay is part of an ongoing series of articles I wrote for newspapers in Canada. It appeared in the Globe and Mail on September 4, 2009.  We were expecting an uneventful birth, and all seemed well when Nicholas entered the world weighing eight pounds exactly, with a head the size of a football. "Don't worry," my mother said. "Your brother Bob had a big head, too. He'll grow into it." Something was wrong. Nicholas was jaundiced, as babies often are, but the doctors could not figure out why. "We think he might be hydrocephalic," my family doctor said, adding that water on the brain could have caused an enlargement of his skull, which could destroy much of his neural tissue. I blamed myself, wondering what I had done during my pregnancy to give my child this terrible life sentence. He looked so perfect, I thought, how could he be so broken? That night I tossed and turned, waiting for the nurse to bring Nicholas into my room. I ...

When asked how she was doing after her husband died, a friend said she was "inconsolable". Inconsolable. It's a good word. I know the feeling. It's the feeling you get when you lose your child to drugs, to the street, to suicide. Sort of the same feeling in your stomach when you get into an elevator and it drops unexpectedly. Your stomach feels like you're chewing on it. Swishing it around your mouth. Then ripping it into smithereens because it hurts so bad. I lost my son Nicholas a few times. When he decided he'd rather live with his dad, "get to know him" and his stepmother. That time I lost him for five years. I got him back when his dad didn't want him anymore. Literally didn't want him. Dad shipped him off to a boarding school with a set of cheap sheets and expensive skates. Shipped him like a Fed Ex package. No return address. I lost him another time, after he'd returned to live with me at age 15. Instead of bunking wi...