And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact that they're not."I don't know how to respond to that; it's like being told after thirty-five years that the sky, which I've seen as a brilliant blue, is in fact rather green.

An item that looks perfectly normal on the surface might only be disguised.

This is what I like about photographs. They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.