Wednesday, September 8, 2010

When a Drowning Isn't the Worst Thing

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

Mary Beth is a landscaper and mother of three. She worries about what to throw together for dinner, whether her son is depressed, and if she should be having more sex. She has best friends who call her for parenting advice and old friends that don't speak to her anymore. She fights with her daughter. She calls her mother occasionally. Then, she wakes up in the hospital.

Despite the tragedy that upends the whole thing, I fell into this life. One adage I took especially to heart (along with the recipe for chicken tetrazzini): "small children, small problems, big children, big problems."

So after reemerging from that life into my own, I hugged my son, made a cake for my husband, and read my daughter a bedtime story. One with a happy ending.

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