It is Easter morning, one year after Brianna’s life-saving neurosurgery. We are standing in a pew at the congregational church in our hometown, to which we had walked that morning. Long banners hang from the vaulted ceiling of the sanctuary proclaiming Alleluia, and pots of tall lilies surround the communion table. The choir and congregation are mid-song, a big, glorious Easter hymn.  Wild sopranos careen behind me: “Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!”  All this shouting about triumph over death is making me nervous. I read the hymn, but I don’t sing the words.  We woke this morning…

I hold in my hand a passbook for a savings account my father opened with a $30 deposit on October 26, 1960. You may have to be at least as old as I am now—60—to recognize a bank passbook and remember its purpose. This one looks like an American passport, which my dad had yet to acquire, with a somber blue cloth cover embossed with the name of the bank and its branch—Pittsburgh National Bank, Bloomfield Office—in gold. Palm-sized, ideal for slipping into a man’s top pocket. You pulled out your passbook as you entered the bank, where a teller…

1996 My mom picked me up from school early for a doctor’s appointment. Soon we were on the interstate, headed to Atlanta to see the pulmonologist who treated my cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic disease known for the havoc it wreaks on the lungs. As a kid, I wasn’t trepidatious about these visits. Already a people pleaser at 10 years old, I relished the praise I got when my lungs sounded clear. I would go home satisfied, and life would revert to normal until it was time to return three months later. That was the routine—until today. After the visit,…

“Of course your back hurts,” my wife said. “That’s what you get for doing CrossFit.” For the first time in fifteen years, I was back at the gym on the regular—swinging kettlebells, doing burpees, jerking and contorting. I had just turned forty, and all this exercise seemed like a mild midlife crisis. When the doctor escorted me to the front of the ER waiting room, bypassing crying kids, broken bones and a couple flesh wounds, I realized it was a whole other kind of crisis. Why was I getting the VIP treatment? A grapefruit-sized tumor in my back. How the…

“Five more minutes, then we get out and change our clothes,” I repeat twice. Shomik alternates between dog paddling and flipping himself in the water. I revel at his ease and imagine the sensation of respite, of weightlessness in a heavy world. Shumita, his sister, a first grader, plunges to collect plastic frogs and goldfish at the bottom of the pool.  “Mermaid treasures,” she yells jubilantly, “look Shomik, I got a red frog.” Soaking in the warm, silky blue illuminated water feels luxurious. Outside, there is dirty slippery slush and a frigid wind that ices my hair.  Twice a week…