What We Have (42 page)

If the medical world has granted me one kind of support, academia has offered another. Boston College—both the university and my department—has allowed and even encouraged me to move beyond my field in ways that have made this project possible. Beyond that, the English department has been a wonderful home for reading, writing, thinking, and talking about literature, both with colleagues and students. I am lucky to work with so many people I count as friends. Both inside and outside of academia, friends have helped with this book in dozens of ways: talking, reading drafts, giving advice (professional/medical/ maternal), sharing (exemplary) works of creative nonfiction, and talking some more. Special thanks are due to Barbara Bierer, Elizabeth Bartle, Barbara Beal, Caroline Bicks, Mary Crane, Sari Horwitz, and Pam Peck for their support and insights. For Lucienne Thys-Senocak, who managed to read and make insightful comments on the manuscript in the midst of incalculable challenges of her own—there are no thanks big enough.

My biggest debts are to the people who have lived with me most closely. Members of my extended family, from Newton to Johannesburg, have talked me through hard choices, read drafts, and provided countless models of humor, persistence, and the power of stories. On my mother’s side, I want to thank Sherman Holvey, her only surviving cousin, who taught my mother to dance and has always brought grace and style to our family—and who knows himself what it means both to suffer and to heal. Huge thanks also go to Paul and Jill, my newly rediscovered cousins, who have accepted my efforts to tell my piece of a larger story with generosity and warmth. My nieces and nephew have read and commented on drafts and helped in myriad ways. Thanks to Jenny, Rachel, Maddy, and Ben for this, and for so much more. On Jacques’s side, thanks are due to Nasreen Rajab-Budlender, an early fan of my efforts to describe life with a newborn; Suellen Perold, a wonderful sister-in-law and sympathetic ear; and to Charlotte and Helene Perold, who continue to exemplify—in so many ways—the rich connections that motherhood and daughterhood afford.

My father has always been the best of readers, listeners, and guides, not least in this. My sisters, who have made every step of this journey with me, are at once my best friends, my partners, my collaborators, and my allies. They are amazing, both of them, for letting me even attempt to write a story that rightly belongs to us all. In the same way, Jacques, Sacha, and Libby have not only allowed me to write a story that is largely and importantly theirs, but have encouraged me to do so. They are a daily reminder why all of this matters.

My deepest thanks go to those no longer here to receive them. To Sylvia and Pody, who knew none of this. To Gail, who knew only a glimmer of it. And finally, to my mother, lover of history, who taught me that the present is only the smallest neighborhood of the past.