I had given her the middle name, Grace, in a fit of gratitude - so desperately thankful that she had been born without the problems the doctors predicted.

Back then, when they were tiny, I still believed that I could greenhouse my children. I thought that I could give them just the right ingredients -- the right teachings, the right lessons, the right examples -- and grow them into the sorts of people that I wanted them to be. I learned fast that parents were important but not that important. I learned that my children were their own people, independent of me and what I did and said. That they developed their characters and characteristics largely on their own. I had to content myself with floating on a wide perimeter of their existence, where I would cajole, encourage and chastise, understanding all the while that their love of basketball and math and drawing really had very little to do with me and a great deal to do with them.

I continued to try, nonetheless. Sitting them down for "talks" and "life lessons". They mostly put up with me.

I was in New York roaming the aisles at Sephora looking at products that promised to restore my youth in a few precious drops. I also needed to buy a gift for my daughter -- the one with the middle name, Grace. I stopped at the Philosophy counter in front of their Amazing Grace products. And I saw it -- the lesson.

I read it. And then I read it again. Then I stopped the saleswoman and asked her if she had read it. She said she had but she stopped and read it with me, anyway. We both nodded at the message's relevance. It was like a song whose lyrics we suddenly paid attention to -- instead of just listening to them carelessly as if they were in another language.