Dearest Lily,   You’re about to turn nine years old – halfway to eighteen.   I recently read a blog post that changed how I’m experiencing your childhood. Most of our physical time together happens before you turn eighteen – something like 90%. That idea has made this birthday hit a little differently. There are only so many moments, and I’m suddenly very aware that we’re already well into them.   You’re still my beautiful, charming, and sometimes exasperating Winnie-the-Pooh

Dear Lily and Liam, Lately I've been thinking about some of the things I wish I'd known when I was younger – the insights that would have...

Jesus Keeps His Head Down   He crossed near Nogales with a coyote who cost 80,000 pesos and spent three days in a stash house watching telenovelas with the sound off.   A friend of the family ferried him up to Fresno where he sleeps behind the Circle K. Every morning he stands in the parking lot coffee cooling in a Styrofoam cup that still smells of last night's Tecate.   The contractors know his name by now. He can paint, patch, hang drywall, and landscape. They pay in cash.

Dear Liam, Six years ago, when your sister turned one, I wrote her a letter and posted it here on my blog. Two years later, for your...