Emily Susan Blumenstein
	greenwich, ct

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Alex, myself and Ted

Not long ago I was looking up Pyrrhic Victory in the dictionary. Of course, I still can't spell, so I asked Alex. He is 14 and was sitting near me in the living room, reading the encyclopedia. I asked him for help and he came over. Apauled at the page I was looking on, he quickly flipped me to 'py' with a sort of mock 'does your ignorance know no bounds' expression on him. As I ran my pointer finger down the page, he stood over me and declaimed into the air "If we have one more victory over Rome, we will be completely defeated" I turned and looked up at him "is that what Pyrrhis said?" "No, mom, I made it up" he said displaying how well I had taught him the art of sarcasm. Later as I was on the couch, thinking, looking up at the ceiling and I said "Alex, what was that quote you said before, tell it to me again?" He said "Mom, leave me alone" I said "No, really, I'm thinking about something and I need to know, tell it to me again" He simply ignored me and went on reading. "Alex, really, tell it to me again!" I said. He came over and looked down at me and said "You remind me of that character in 'Of Mice and Men'.
When Ted was 7 (2000), In January, we came home together from the hospital. He had just had his central line taken out after a year of violent and intensive treatment for a malevolent tumor in his head. We came into the house. Ted walked ahead of me and went across the kitchen to another door heading into the rest of the house. His back was toward me as he walked away. I turned to put something in the sink and now my back was toward him. For some mysterious reason, though we couldn't see each other, we both turned toward each other at the exact same moment, me falling very passionately to my knees and him running toward me and throwing his arms around me "We did it mommy, it's over".