The Last Amazon

Where does the time go? I remember bringing the Last Amazon home from the hospital like it was yesterday, and today, Isaiah Sender took these pictures of the Last Amazon getting ready to go to her high school prom.

It has been a big deal for her. It was her first dance and her last act as a high school student. I never went to a high school dance or my prom. While my prom was being held, I was out protesting against discrimination towards Gays & Lesbians in housing and employment. What can I say? It was the seventies.

I took one look at her in this dress and I almost didn’t let her go. She wanted to go out with a splash. You see, she has spent the last four years in secondary school feeling rather invisible. She was the brainy girl who pulls off the 97 in physics who no one notices unless they need help with their homework.

There will be no graduation ceremonies for her as the secondary school she attends will not hold the ceremony until November. I believe the underlying rationale for holding the ceremony so late is to give the slackers, who have to go to summer school to make up their marks a chance to attend the ceremony with their peers.


Come November, she will be in the midst of an honours bachelor program in Neuroscience out of town - so the prom was it. Her last chance to say to her peers – look at me – just once.

Her father and I never told her she was beautiful - although she is. We believed the content of her character and her intellect were the more important values to emphasize, and so, she grew up having no awareness of her own beauty When I walk down the street with her and the young men whistle, as young men do, she really believes it is for me - which simply astounds me. I am not sure we were entirely right, and only time will tell, but we meant well.