It’s taken me several weeks to write this, for reasons both in and beyond my control. But I’m grateful for the time I’ve had to reflect on it all. To get this right.
The book launch was better than I ever let myself imagine because to imagine it fully would have felt a little too much like tempting fate. So I settled for hoping. For planning. For fussing over the tiniest details. So many things just weren’t falling into place. I worried the men would be disappointed. The path there was messy and hard. I crossed my fingers. I sent prayers up and trusted they’d land. And when the day arrived, it felt less like something I had pulled off and more like something the universe had been patiently, secretly rehearsing. Waiting for its cue.
I will always be a list girl. Here’s how the weekend’s stamped in my heart. Memories. Thoughts. Realizations. The hard stuff, too:
1. Reunion. Four men. The last of eleven. Time folding in on itself as they saw one another again. For some, after decades. There are moments when history feels like a concept, and then there are moments when it walks into a room and hugs you. This was the latter. Some of us cried. Some of us didn’t realize we were crying. It was everything!
2. Janine and Melina. My agent and my editor showed up, not just physically, but fully. They understood that this wasn’t just a book event. It was a gathering of legacy. Watching them sit on that stage beside these men, listening, honoring, participating . . . it meant more than I can neatly package into words.
3. Pledge. Three years ago, I made a quiet promise to myself: by the time this book came out, I would be able to truly communicate in ASL with these men. Admittedly, I am still slow. I still miss things. Often, my brain lags as fingers fly in front of me. But I can do it. Fully. Imperfectly. Happily. And I am so deeply proud of myself. For not giving up.
4. Showing up. People came. From everywhere. All across the country. No lie. Planes, trains, long drives, rearranged lives—for this. To witness history. To meet these extraordinary men. But also…for me. And that realization is still sitting with me, gently knocking the air out of my lungs in the best possible way. What a wild, beautiful thing it is to be held up by a community.
5. Camp. I love that at 50+ years old, I get to talk about my “camp friends” and feel like the luckiest kid in the class. Last summer, in what I now call my Summer of Sign, I took my ears off and stepped fully into a Deaf-centered world for the first time. Arizona. Upstate New York. ASL immersion. Deaf counselors whose pride lit the sky. I learned, yes, but more than that, I shifted. I found an honest version of myself. And I found people—my people—who I know will be in my life, always. They showed up for this launch! #ILY
6. Barry and Vonne. Before all this, they were my doorway. My beginning. Their patience with my ASL. Their warmth. Their complete acceptance of me, even with a cochlear implant, helped dissolve years of silent shame. Acceptance like that reshapes you. I look forward to the next time we can lazily chat in the pool. Bear love!
7. David and Harry. Until now, they had merely been voices, stories, and photographs. Generosity across the distances. They shared. They fact-checked. But in D.C., they became friends. People I got to sit with, laugh with. I’ve always admired them. Now I adore them.
8. John. Three weeks before the launch, a message arrived. One of those blink-and-read-it-twice kind of messages. John was still alive. A random collision of universes. I’d tried to find him for years. And then, there he was. I wondered if it might feel awkward. We hadn’t yet built a relationship the way I had with the others. Would he even want to come? But community has a way of making space. Of pulling people into orbit. And when he walked in, the story felt complete in a way I hadn’t dared to hope for. Later, sitting with him in his home, unhurried, we shared stories. And I bragged on him as his smile reached all the way to his eyes.
9. Hopes. I hope, deeply, that I will see each of them again.
10. India. Find yourself an India and don’t let go. She grounded me when I was spinning out. Her way of moving through the world is contagious in the best way. That day by the lake feels less like chance and more like design. The universe knew. I’m endlessly grateful it did. Supernova, indeed.
11. Gallaudet. A place of pride, for sure. But also, a place that I felt wouldn’t make room for me. I carried all my what-ifs. All my quiet questions. All my I’ll-never-belong feelings. And then came Brian Greenwald. His warmth, his time, his words, his patience. I nearly cried. That kind of acceptance does something to you. I returned again and again. It is a place with its own complexities, its own very real challenges, but it’s also a place capable of growth and of opening its doors wider. Along the way, it became a space that felt good to be in. And Brian, too, became a friend.
12. Kellogg Hotel and Convention Center. What beautiful space. There are rooms, and then there are rooms that seem to understand what they are being asked to hold. This one delivered.
13. Effort. (And food.) A whole weekend of gatherings and eating (special shoutout to Stellina Pizzeria at Union Market). Family, friends, and that beautiful blur where the two become indistinguishable. People leaning in. Trying. Signing imperfectly but bravely. Choosing connection over comfort. There is something so human about laughing through the mistakes, about inventing signs on the spot, and especially about eventual lightbulb moments of communication successes.
14. Eva, Mai, and El Presidente (Union Market).
Two days before the launch: no restaurant. Luck running low. A rising sense of dread and stress. And then, Eva. She didn’t just listen; she entered the story. Took my arm, quite literally, and led me toward a solution. Introduced me to Mai. Opened a door. Then another. A private room. A menu. Smiles that said, we’ve got you. And then my exhale. The kind that starts in your tightened chest and exits your body cleansingly. That night, walking into that room full of our people, eating and laughing, ordering from a menu that somehow—magically—held my book cover (which I hadn’t even shown her), it felt like being wrapped tightly. Eva didn’t have to do any of it. She did all of it anyway.
15. School visits. There is a difference between visiting middle/high schoolers and elementary kids. A big one. The kind you learn in real time while adjusting on the fly. But here’s the truth: joy translates. Games translate. Connection finds a way. And elementary kids? They wave like you’re a celebrity and hug like they mean it. Visiting Deaf schools was something else entirely. When they learned the bioastronauts weren’t allowed to go to space because they were Deaf, oh, they had thoughts. Strong ones. Necessary ones. And the birthday girl in the front row, turning seven? Watch her. She’s not here to accept injustice quietly. Without hesitation, I’d bet on her being the first Deaf astronaut someday.
16. Smithsonian. When they invited me to sign books at both Air & Space Museums, I had to pause and count my lucky stars. Slowly, just to make sure they were real. Achievement unlocked. Mission accomplished. A dream I didn’t even know to dream, somehow already waiting for me.
17. Bookstores. Authors are nothing without bookstores. Full stop. And D.C. booksellers? They didn’t just stock the story, they held it. They understood its roots, its reach, its meaning. I could have stayed for hours just listening to them match books to kids like everyday magic. It made me miss my librarian days in the best aching way.
18. Rental house. David and Sophie, proof that kindness still abounds in unexpected ways. A month in their rowhouse gave us exactly what we wanted: a way to live in the city, not just pass through it. And then, because the universe loves a good wink, finding out David graduated from USF the same year as Kylie? Cosmic alignment. Also, Sophie = elite-level dog wrangler.
19. Griffin & Luci. They showed up ready. Not in shark costumes this time, India had the inflatables covered, but fully themselves. Booksellers. Photographers. Sounding boards. Excellent humans. And still, we had plenty of time to split the G the rest of the week. Because balance. It’s important.
20. Josh & Grace (& Millie). We don’t usually get this much time together. Life is like that. Busy, stretched, always moving. But this month? Twelve shared meals. (Josh counted!) Twelve chances to sit, to talk, to hug, to just be in the same space without rushing off. And time with our grandcat, which, let’s be honest, was its own kind of joy.
21. Huck. We learned, definitively, that Huck is not a city dog. Not even a little. The noise, the chaos, the unpredictable symphony of D.C. It rattled him fiercely. And yet, drop him into a dog park and suddenly he was of the people. A regular. A local. Like he’d been elected mayor of the pack. It’s funny, the places we don’t fit until we find the exact pocket where we do.
22. Get-togethers. Bringing people together is one of my most favorite things to do in this entire galaxy.
23. Dreams. I’m exponentially relieved the whole thing wasn’t a dream. Though honestly, parts of it still feel like one I’m slowly waking up from.
24. Shawn. There aren’t enough words for what you held, what you made possible, what you stepped into without hesitation. You didn’t just support this. You embraced it, fully, generously, with your whole heart. You are my sanity.
THE HARD THINGS:
25. Measurements. I tend to shift my measure of success. Constantly. Unfairly to myself. It becomes slippery. Hard to define. It’s an easy habit, especially in a field where so much is, or isn’t, ranked. Is, or isn’t, starred. Is, or isn’t, state-listed. I often let what isn’t carry more weight than what is. There are many days I want to walk away from this career. To just live in book-joy without writing. It’s easy to use the wrong metrics. And yet, I know that not everything meaningful shows up that way. The real markers aren’t always glittery. A reader recognizing themselves. A conversation that stays with you. A story finding its way to the right person at the right time. Human connection is no less real than a shiny award. This book launch gave me a new marker for my toolkit. A room packed with people. And love. Four men, reunited. A story finally heard. That’s the measure I’ll remind myself to keep next time something feels “isn’t.”
26. Bonds. We lost our friend Nancy when the book came out. Suddenly, joy and grief blurred together. Too much to carry at once. I bartered. I’d give it all back to have her here again. To rewind time and stand in a world where she still existed. Loss does that. It reshapes everything around it. Her absence will always be tied to this book’s beginning. That won’t change. Can’t. But I can choose what else lives there, too. There can be a place where she is remembered with the book, not in opposition to it. Nancy was excited about this story. About these men, about finally shining a light where it was long overdue. She believed in that kind of work. The kind that lifts people into view. So I will let this time hold both things. Grief, yes. But also, celebration. Remembrance. Of her. She’s part of the story now, and I’ll carry her with it. Always.
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