Tribute to Harry was my first submission and my first publication, winning a worldwide writing contest that was geared to a teen-age readership. I was 24 at the time with two babies. One was 22 months and hyperactive to the extreme as a result of liquid phenobarbital to control a seizure disorder.  Any seizure could cause permanent brain damage the pediatric neurologist told us. The second child was 3 months old, born 2 months prematurely, and the cessation of her crying was years away. 

When my sister told me about the contest and suggested I submit Tribute to Harry, something I had written just because I wrote, I sent it to her with a note: "Edit it up and submit it under your name." She returned it with a note: "Doesn't need editing. You submit it under your own name." So I retyped it and submitted it with toddler peanut butter fingerprints and won. I held tightly to the elation of personal success through the long difficult years of sustaining the lives of my children.

As for the children - the seizures finally stopped in early grade school with my oldest daughter and she went on to graduate cum laude from Harvard University. Somewhere along the line, the tears of my second daughter turned into laughter, and if she ever decides to give up her career as an audiologist, she could easily slip into the role of comedian. Her stories have kept us in stitches for years.

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