the thing is single object nonfiction reflections by Mary Beth Ellis

Adulthood

My baby cousin, Kaitlyn, paid me a visit. She discovered a set of stacked coasters and began taking them apart, then piling everything up again. She had everything upside down at first, and I was leaning down to help her when my mother said, "Let her do it herself."

"But I don't want her to know that the world is hard," I said, then did the thing that was hard, and struggled to let her struggle.

August 27, 2003

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