Your Name Means "Light Healer"

To Lucy Leigh, On Your High School Graduation

The day you were born, you couldn’t wait to come into the world, so that when we arrived at the hospital and they got your momma situated in the delivery room, the doctor examined her and exclaimed, “Oh, I can already see baby’s head,” and your momma, unbelieving, said, “No, are you serious?” and then was overwhelmed with the most intense contractions she would ever have in all the six babies to which she gave birth. She pushed you out in a few minutes. Your arrival was painful and quick and lanky and perhaps a bit traumatic for your momma, who I think was expecting something a bit more gradual, based on your older brother’s arrival. Something more like a war of attrition, and less like an airstrike.