Jo’s Blog

A little girl and her mother came to see me last night. “She’s got these white patches on her legs,” the Mom said, trying to sound casual. “It started with just one, but then they spread.” My heart sank. I sat down [...]

Forty years ago, Ravi and I got married on Mother’s Day. It was a magical celebration, literally uniting East with West (I enacted it by changing from my white gown to a red sari and back into white – Ravi was in white all along). We [...]

Going to college in America means you are definitely going to have a roommate. And your room will be small. The room Melanie and I shared was about 9′ x 12′. We opted for bunkbeds to maximize available space (I was on the top) and we [...]

Sign language is such a beautiful way to communicate. Abstract thoughts and words transform themselves into something visual and concrete and meanings we hadn’t appreciated suddenly emerge. Contradictions too! For example, Kashvi, one of [...]

This is a story about a squeaky gate. Every day I walk back and forth to my office at least four times. I go in to work in the morning, I go home for lunch, I go back to the office in the afternoon and I go home in the evening. Sometimes I [...]

Everybody is important and everybody has a name. Ourselves, of course. So obvious. We all know our own names and it’s hard to imagine that others can forget them. Especially if that other person is their boss. Bosses hold a special [...]

For some kids, talking is hard, if not impossible. Sakshi’s cerebral palsy has given her a range of distinctive movements and she has difficulty getting words out. But while talking is tough, thinking is not. Sakshi is a bright, articulate [...]