A Child (and a Book) are Born

Twelve years ago today, a lovely little girl was born with curly hair and olive skin. She weighed just 3 pounds and 13 ounces as she was 5 weeks premature. She should have been a Xmas baby but here she was.

We have spent many hours analyzing whom she resembles and how.

Our daughter J has her aunt's hair in colour and texture now - no longer curly it is thick with a bit of a wave. Her mother's full lips and smallish hands and toes. Her father's dark eyes, chin and little nose. Olive skin from the Sicilian side, lovely almond shaped eyes from the Japanese side. Almost as tall as her mother now but much smaller than her father.

What joy she has brought us ... to be sure it's a lot of work and yelling and hectoring and worrying sometimes but what reward to be her mother. I sometimes just stare at her (other parents will know what I mean) and wonder how such a beautiful creature came from me.


I knew something magical was happening when my publisher Christian Snyder at Blaurock Press said that Made Up Of Arias, the new book, would be ready on November 15th. It's seemed predestined, symbolic, kismet.

This weekend I am attending the AICW conference at UofT on Friday and Sunday and ran into an old friend, the writer Caterina Edwards from Edmonton, whom I adore as a person and as a writer. I was telling her about actually holding the book in my hands (it arrived one day early much to my daughter's consternation - she was so thrilled to think it would arrive on Saturday).

I told Caterina that I felt as if I had given birth again - the feeling was so exhilarating. She said yes, it was exactly like that. She completely understood.

When I was being consoled by my family doctor at one point about the infertility issue and the delay in the adoption process and despairing whether we would ever have another child, he said, wisely it turns out, "Well, think of it this way: maybe your book will be your baby". Thank you Dr. F for your prescience!

So today I celebrate the two best things I ever did (besides marrying R) ... my wonderful child and my new book.