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Coming of Age

“Hydrocortisone in Murky Water”

That’s not as touching a title for this image as “Coming of Age.”

This image represents something to me that touches me deeply. It’s an image of the growing up we all do, and that we watch our children do. Passing from one age to the next, we also see internal changes; a new age of spirit and maturity.

My daughter Lauren turned 12 today; her birth in a small town in the East San Fernando Valley foothills is as vivid in my mind as if it happened last week. My baby girl actually smiled at me the day she was born.

“It’s probably just gas,” the midwife deflated. “Babies can’t smile.”

I have rested comfortably these 12 years knowing she was absolutely wrong—you see, an angel touched my heart that day.

A week and a half ago, when Lauren was with Teresa and I for the weekend, she came into the room telling me that “a tube of something fell off the shelf in the bathroom as I reached for my hairbrush. It fell right in the toilet… and I had just flushed it.”

“Is it gone forever?” I asked.

“No, I grabbed it out.”

I looked at her with stunned pride. As a smile broke across my face, she knew what I was getting at. She beamed, a little embarrassment reddening her face as I probed deeper, dramatically. “You grabbed it?! Out of the toilet?!”

“Uh huh!” she smiled.

“As it was still flushing?!”

“Uh huh!”

“But that means the water was still—”

“Uh huh!” she said, stuttering into a blast of laughter.

I got up and wrapped my arms around her. “I am proud of you! You are growing up!”

She wrapped her arms around me, accepting my accolades. I grabbed her arms, ripping them from my waist. “Ewwww! Did you wash your hands?” I joked.

“Yes!”

I wrapped her arms back around me with a wink.

And I kissed the top of her head.


An hour later I wandered into the bathroom and found this scene. The hydrocortisone tube sitting in the bathroom sink, half-filled with murky, handsoap-tinged water.”

I smiled to myself, that my little girl was growing up—but she’s still my little girl.

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