I Thought My Daughter Was An Introvert. She Surprised Me.

I was sure. Sophie was doing things her way on her own time. She was handling her pain in a way that was familiar to me: an introvert’s way of dealing with what hurts. I identified deeply with her kind of quiet.

Around her first birthday, her hemangioma began the process of involution (the fancy word for “shrinking”). The swelling subsided; the redness began to lighten; and the ulcers scarred over and healed. By the age of two, she was willing to extend her trust to a few close relatives and family friends, but she would suffer no fools.

Fast forward to third grade, when my quiet, book-loving, serious girl announced that she would be singing in the school talent show the next day.

“Oh,” I said. “With your class?”

“No,” she replied. “By myself.”

I remember how I held my breath as she took her place beside her teacher, accompanying her on the guitar. Could she sing? And what possessed her to want to stand in front of her whole school and sing alone?

I am glad I captured that song on video that day. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” she sang. Perfectly, magically, on pitch. I still cry when I watch this performance. I can’t look away from her tiny fingers, nervously smoothing the folds of her white skirt. Who was this child?