“I allowed myself to imagine Ronan in a landscape of light and continuous revelation, his life lived as a series of singular moments. I wondered if in some ways, the greater loss here (or at least the most stupefying one) was mine, not Ronan's. Yes, Tay-Sachs disease would take his life; the number of his days was determined long before he could make a decision to transform the life he'd been given in one direction or another. He was denied that, but I couldn't imagine that his world was so remote, so unknowable. In this short story of his life I could not believe that he had been denied wonder. What if every moment of Ronan's life was, for him, like stepping free into a space, into a "first", into a state of wonder. Wonder that exists outside- beyond- narrative, wonder that feels like entering, again and again, for the very first time, a shining room. Dazzling, but somehow expected, like the light given off row after row of luminous trees- a blaze of impossible color. Pure experience without editorializing by the intellect. Moments that aren't folded into story but instead give off their own light. That must be the world of Ronan- his body, his mind, his heart. These thoughts comforted me.”