My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.

Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.

I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.

My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home, or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.

My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.

My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.

When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.