With delicate blue eyes like her father, she came into this world like a little songbird out of a cage.  The doctor said, “It looks like an Eden.”  As a baby, she sang the household awake with her gentle cooing.

Like the blissful place she is named for,  she is lushly beautiful in spirit and countenance.  If you took her at face value, you wouldn’t believe under any circumstance that she could have earned the nickname “Killer”.  Eden has an iron will, and she’ll try almost anything once — provided it is in line with her sense of justice, fairness, compassion and honesty – and of course, humor.  There is something disarming and quite stunning about her sense of humor.  It’s madcap, slipped-on-the-banana-peel, where-did-that-come-from kind of jocularity that sneaks up on you and next thing you know, you’re throwing your coffee cup into the air.  One summer morning at McDonald’s I was enjoying my coffee as Eden was supposedly enjoying the playscape.  Without warning, she slipped quietly behind me and exclaimed “BOO!”  My coffee cup sailed through the air.  For a second, we were both startled – me for the shock of having my sweet child scare the dickens out of me, and her for not expecting me to throw my morning peace keeper into the air.  We laughed for hours after that.

Another Eden surprise:  For the dance recital in 2008, she flew to Houston to see me perform!  Being a college student at the time, she worked out the arrangements and paid for her flight – just to surprise me and see me dance onstage.  Since my teacher relocated to Houston after Hurricane Katrina, that is where I’ve continued my classes with her.  I was already excited that my partner Tricia was coming to see me perform.   As I poised myself to give Tricia a big hug at the airport gate, my jaw dropped when I saw her with Eden in tow!  Good thing I didn’t have a coffee cup in my hand!  I had often wished that my children could see a live Bharatanatyam performance and be able to hear the live intricate Carnatic music, but I never really pictured that I would look out into the audience and actually see Eden there!