I’ve had an intensely difficult month.

To protect the privacy of my family, I have to be vague, for which I hope you will forgive me. I’ve always been very open about the heartache of my daughter Sammi’s first eight years: the confusion and the instinct I had to push through it, the fear I had about her breathing and eating, the confidence I somehow found inside me to urge all of us forward to a real resolution to her challenges. As much as was age-appropriate, I have always asked Sammi what she felt comfortable sharing through this blog and through other writing. She wants the world to gain something from her journey, as do I.

But this last month, the heartache and the excruciating journey have belonged to my parents, and it has been dramatic, painful, and frightening on a physical level for them and on an emotional and spiritual level for all of us. It kept me away from home for most of the month, away from my husband and daughters and a million miles outside my comfort zone. It did not and cannot end well, but that is all I can say about it without betraying their privacy.

And yet…I still have a full life that requires my energy, including the publication of my first book, Kitchen Medicine: How I Fed My Daughter out of Failure to Thrive, in March. I have daughters to parent and paid work to do, and somehow, I have to immerse myself back into it. So, I have publishing news, and I have promotional plans to make, and I am somehow still standing, despite myself. That’s the way it goes, right? Below the news below, is a song that has kept me thinking and closed my eyes around my tears. Beauty hurts, and hurt can be beautiful, witnessed and mirrored, validated, legitimized, held.

• It is only fitting that as I helped my mother through this awful month, Romper published a story I wrote that was inspired by something she did when I was a little girl. In honor of Hannukah (which started on Sunday night), enjoy my essay for Romper: As the Only Jew in the Class, Latkes Made My Holiday the Star
• In time for all the winter holidays, here’s a service piece I wrote for Wired about all the apps you can use to manage your family’s food allergies, intolerances, and other dietary restrictions. I wrote it thinking of the years of restrictions my family managed — including the ones that remain, my fish allergy and lactose intolerance — and wishing these had been available in the years of the six food elimination diet: Apps to Help Manage Meals for Different Dietary Needs
• And for something totally different, here’s a meditation on my aging body, also oddly apropos of my front row seat to the aging process this month: You Are Here

Let No Grief – The Wild Reeds

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