A bit ago, an old family friend sent me this photo. There I am, with my mother and my sister. I forwarded the photo to my father. He thinks the photo was taken just a few months after we had emigrated to Brooklyn from Indonesia. Since the photo was taken, a lot has happened. We
Category: Family life
Fly-Fishing As a Rite of Passage
Our children are out of school for summer. I’ve taken a few days off this past week to take two of them fly-fishing. Once a year, I drive five hours to a fishing lodge in northern NH, near Canada. It’s an area with little road traffic, no cell phone coverage, and spotty Wi-Fi (but enough
My Greatest Personal Fear
At Sheryl Sandberg’s talk the other week, she asked the audience a question from her book: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” It’s a great question, and one about which I’ve been thinking since. Am I afraid? If so, of what am I afraid? Coincidentally, a friend of mine, Anne Cooke Mitchell, is
Re-post: My Mother and Her Shoeboxes
(This is a re-post of a blog entry I wrote a year ago): This is a hard post to write. Today is May 12. It is the day of my mother’s birthday. She also died, at age 60, on May 12. That day also happened to be Mother’s Day. It was a difficult day with
To Single Parents Everywhere
I’m home alone with the children this weekend, as my wife is out of town. What I thought was seasonal allergies has instead become a full-blown cold. I don’t feel well at all. I’ve cancelled one of the kids’ weekend activities, but I will still be driving them around to some sports lessons this morning
A Passover Meal for Gentiles?
I wrote a few days ago about Passover and how it’s an important story about freedom and one that I wanted to share with my children (more here). Though I’m not Jewish, the “feast of freedom” and its recounting of sacrifice and emancipation is a story that my family, in a smaller way, experienced. In