Away

 

Last week I was away for five nights on a trip for work. It was by far the longest time I'd been away from my daughter and only the second time I'd spent the night away from her (the first was this past August, when her father and I went away for one night for our anniversary).

(The picture is from the lobby of my hotel, a former bank. I loved the way they preserved the old, ornate decor, down to the wrought-iron "TELLER" signs at the front desk.)

They say that business trips are a working mother's chance to grab a little slice of heaven, but I don't know. Personally, I think room service pretty quickly palls.

The work that I was doing while I was away involves learning and writing about disorders, sometimes genetic, that profoundly affect children's emotional and intellectual development.

I think about how fiercely the parents of children with those conditions must love their kids. And I think that sometimes, the fact that my daughter is here and--so far, knock on wood--whole is  almost too much to bear.