Seize

By Brian Komei Dempster.  This is the author's follow-up to Topaz,  which spares no one the highs and lows of fatherhood. The speaker struggles to  care for his young and ailing child—a child whose many medical problems create an obstacle course of moral and emotional dilemmas. How does a  father come to terms with the large and unknowable mysteries of a child  who cannot communicate in a “normative” way? How does a  parent—especially one who is dependent on language—guide a child without  the use of speech? And how does one become the parent of another when  their own uncertainties, their own wounds—intergenerationally from war,  from strained race relations, from constantly being denied a place to  belong—are still healing?