Quotes from “Always looking up” - “Family” Chapter

“Today happens to be our twentieth wedding anniversary, and I’ve got a blank card that I have to fill with righteous sentiment sometime before dinner this evening—twenty years’ worth of love, gratitude, affection, and respect in my own increasingly indecipherable cursive script. I promised myself I’d limit it to the two spaces within the card’s fold.” (Page 213)

“But now I was getting a chance to witness firsthand the courage, bravery, self-sacrifice, and enveloping sense of community present from the moment the first plane hit. I began to understand why so many stayed. Many were fearful, but so too were they hopeful. The effects reverberated nationwide, but while New York had been laid low by the most despicable acts, by the most awful suffering human beings could inflict upon other human beings, it had also been buoyed by its greater virtues. Hope, in this case, truly was optimism informed by the knowledge that more people were inclined to do good than to do evil.” (Page 222)

“Tracy and I will feel [that] way about marriage. The more complicated it gets, the more it seems to bring out the best in us.
Confronted with a complication as seemingly dire as my PD diagnosis, so early on in our marriage, could have left us undone. I, for one, was not a willing supplicant to reality. I was a big believer in my won press: a happy-go-lucky lottery winner who’d had it all—a great career, a beautiful wife, a healthy son. I was struggling, though, with figuring out how to keep it all going. I was working more than I needed to, worrying more that I liked to admit, and drinking more than anyone should. I was, to put it mildly, not well positioned to deal with what was coming.”(Page 226)

“If all the risks are removed form a child’s environment, the child will be doomed to a life of playing it safe.” (Page 232)

“...no parent can get his or her arms around all of the could’ve, would’ve, should’ves, mights, maybes, and what-ifs. Each new moment gives you a sufficient load to carry, and I’ve learned, especially as my arms have grown shakier, that there are times when the wisest thing to do is to let go.” (Page 233)

“That has consistently been the thrill for Tracy and me. To discover what they’ve discovered, to hear them recount their joys and successes, to let them have full ownership of all they’ve accomplished, and credit themselves for what they’ve learned, is the best and easiest part of parenting for me.”
It’s much harder, however, to let them own their failures and disappointments. The truth is, of course, that you have no choice. To some extent, the load can be shared, but it can never entirely be taken away.” (Page 237)

“... you can’t take away your child’s pain. You can only be present, be aware, be responsive, be compassionate, and love that child with everything you have.” (Page 238)

“No matter how well intentioned, if I somehow convinced my children that I could remove their problems and relieve their pain, spare them the ups and downs of life, I’d be doing them a huge disservice.” (Page 239)

“Kids are like Labrador retrievers—show them a car with the motor running and the back door open, and giving no thought to the destination, they’ll scramble in and hang their head out the window in anticipation of the wind blowing back their hair and whipping the spit off their dangling tongues.” (Page 254)

“We are where we are. If we keep moving, we’ll be someplace else. We’ll know when we get there.” (Page 262)