With Kat away at camp for a month, I�ve been pondering the inevitability of having her gone much longer. It almost feels like a trial separation�and I�m the one in the lousy position of not being sure she wants the close relationship to end. I miss her. This experience, though, is teaching me just how much there is to admire in my youngest sister. She has sent her young son to a residential school because they can do more for him than she can do at home. It always amazes me the sacrifices people will make for love.

David is severely autistic. He does not speak more than a word or two. He�s sweet-natured but not motivated to move into our world at all. He sees no reason life can�t be one big water-play or finger-flicking adventure. There are very few things he is interested in enough for anyone to use them as reinforcers to modify his behavior.

It is not a question of putting David away. Neither she nor our family would ever do that. David came to some of the events at Kat�s Bat Mitzvah last summer and he belonged there because he was family and he was David and we love him. Kat adores being the center of attention yet I never heard her fret that David or his behavior might take anything away from her�and it�s not because Kat is a shrinking violet. No, David is not away from home because he is not loved well enough. He is away because she (and we) hope that the school he�s at can make home once again the best place for him.

All of us who send our children away for any length of time must rely on the kindness of some relative strangers. How much harder it must be to rely when the stranger is the only one who will ever report. I get letters from camp and my sister will not get letters from school. I know that, at the end of the summer, I will hear detail after detail after detail about almost everything Kat did. My sister will get reports but she will never hear from David what he did last hour, let alone the rest of the day.

If I were the type to have a hero, today my hero would be my younger sister. I know that I could do what she is doing because I am a person who does what needs to be done, no matter how difficult. I�m not sure I could do it, however, with the grace and style she is showing.

Sometimes the hardest things are the things we do for love.

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