MSI Press Blog

  When we were living in Pittsburgh, a little orange kitten showed up one day and quickly became pals with Shane, who named him Puff. He was an indoor–outdoor cat, always turning up for his meals and for petting, as if he knew he belonged. When we moved to Arlington, Virginia, we took Puff with us—how could we leave him behind? He adapted easily to the new neighborhood, a quiet area tucked away from traffic and noise. Good for kids. Good for a cat. For a while, everything felt right. Then, about a year later, Puff stopped wanting to go outside. He curled up in the corner of the study and slept—and slept—and slept. We worried. Was he sick? Had he eaten something bad? We took him to the vet on Monday morning, hoping for medicine or a change of food. The diagnosis was devastating: feline leukemia, likely contracted from other outdoor cats in Virginia. In Pittsburgh, our neighborhood had been so isolated that cats roamed freely and safely—something that’s rare now. But in Arlington, FL...

  Shane was always bored at school, even after skipping four grades. He began first grade six weeks after turning three. We had tried to place him in preschool, but on the very first day the director met me at the door and said, “A child who can read full books, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and work with fractions does not belong in preschool.” The university lab school agreed and moved him directly into first grade. His only complaint was that he couldn’t reach the doorknob to get into the building by himself. The next seven years were marked by a steady pattern of running away from school because he was so bored. When Arlington Public Schools in Virginia tested him at age seven (he was in fourth grade at the time), they found his math skills were at the pre‑calculus level, and the books he preferred were the ones college students struggled with. He especially liked Faulkner. Teachers had no idea what to do with him, and unsurprisingly, he was not fond of school. He preferred ...

When the kids were little, we drove from Pittsburgh to Daytona Beach, Florida, to visit Donnie’s grandmother after Grandpa died. We spent some lovely days on the beach. Lizzie and Shane ran straight into the surf like they had been born with gills. Noelle, determined as always, figured out how to wade with her braces and crutches. (When we got home, we had to explain to the bracemaker how the ocean had “mysteriously” demolished them. He was not amused. Noelle was.) Doah, only a couple of years old, couldn’t run with the others. He still had his tracheotomy, so he and I sat in the sand building castles while Donnie supervised the older kids. It was one of the rare moments in those years when I felt relaxed — truly relaxed — because most of our time was spent in hospitals, clinics, or managing medical equipment at home. Sitting there with him, letting the sun warm us, I allowed myself to believe that everything was under control. And then the ocean reminded me that nothing is ever under ...

  When I was pregnant with Shane, the Army had just begun allowing women to stay in service through pregnancy. There were no rules yet — no modified PT, no exemptions, no “take it easy.” If you were in uniform, you did what everyone else did. So I did. Every morning I walked two miles to work. During the day, I did chin‑ups, sit‑ups, push‑ups, and formation runs. I even took — and passed — a full PT test at nine months pregnant. No one thought to ask whether it was safe. It was simply what the Army required, and I was determined to prove that pregnancy didn’t mean weakness. Shane was born on time, healthy, and strong — my healthiest baby. But from the start, he was different. At just a few months old, when most babies are learning to roll over, Shane would do chin‑ups if I offered him my fingers as a bar. If I held his ankles the way soldiers do for sit‑ups, he’d perform sit‑ups with perfect form. It wasn’t a trick; it was instinct. He seemed to know the rhythm of exertion before h...