"You can never know all there is to know about someone, even when you think you do"

NOT counting childbirth, and looking for the right exit off the Boulevard Peripherique — with four children in the back of the car, broken indicators, and the wrong map — placing my child’s future in the hands of a neurosurgeon has been the most immersive experience of my life.

The thing about this immersion — it feels like someone’s grabbing you by the back of the neck and ducking you under — is that afterwards, when you’ve resurfaced and not panicking has stopped being your full-time job — you think about certain words and their meanings in a different way.

Now that we’re all back home, carrying around the surgeon’s hopeful prognosis like it’s as precious as a newborn baby, I’m thinking about words a lot and that certain words are like onions: the more skins you peel off, the more meanings are revealed.