All The Ways You Taught Us

All the Ways You Taught Us chronicles the sixty-year love story between Mort Gordon, a theoretical physicist blinded by retinitis pigmentosa, and Bernice, his wife and reader, who loses mobility from the spina bifida she was born with. After they've died, daughter Janet discovers a cache of love letters full of hope for a successful marriage. The couple's ingenuity enables Mort, even as his sight disappears, to design innovative particle accelerators. Working for decades at the Michigan State University Cyclotron Laboratory, Mort helps other scientists see the unseen. Bernice reads physics aloud almost every day. As a child, Janet found her parents completely capable even as she began to understand their difficulties. Janet reflects on how the parenting skills of Mort and Bernice help her find meaning—in Jewish culture, in science, in literature, and in American democracy, not just as a child, but as they all grow. Both mother and father insist on deep inquiry into the fundamentals of their world. We follow these influential parents until they can no longer manage daily activities alone.

Conflicts and disappointments along the way raise questions about love, forgiveness and the limitations of simple distinctions like "ability" and "disability." The author conducts an examination of what we do for each other and how we gain from the doing—from one generation to the next. She must balance the responsibilities of a daughter with the concerns of a modern working wife and mother. This family memoir will appeal to those interested in how a scientist works at the edge of discovery, in disability stories, and in Jewish life. It highlights American political perspectives and gender roles through the second half of the 20th century. Traditional ideas about care, dependence and worth are challenged throughout. We root for this family to succeed.