On the morning of the first day of school, I brush my daughter's hair while Bob Dylan's “Just Like a Woman” plays in my head.

        Jillian is 12, nearly 13, a half-here, half-there age, too old for dolls and Disney, too young for makeup. On the cusp of . . . something.

        I look at her, so proud in her first-day clothes, so ready for the day, so damned determined and beautiful, and I begin to understand the ancient men who look at their daughters - now old themselves - and say, “You'll always be my little girl.”

        Dylan wasn't singing about daddy's girl when he wrote, “Everybody knows/that baby's got new clothes/but lately I see her ribbons and her bows/have fallen from her curls.” But that's how it hits me, a getting-old man, on yet another first day of school for Jillian.

        I bite my lip as I run my fingers through her hair.

        We want our children to be the best. What that really means is, we want them to be the best they can be. Don't limit yourself, explore your talents, drink the whole glass of experience. Climb a mountain every day.

        Just do the best you can, we say. How many of us do that? I have a reminder beneath the glass on my desk: “Because one day, you'll be in a home, getting spoon-fed.” Saul Bellow called it “seizing the day.”

        Jillian seizes days. I'm not sure she's ever had a bad one. I'm not sure it's ever occurred to her.

        You may or may not know that she has Down Syndrome. That's only noteworthy for the grace and beauty with which she wears it. The night before the first day of school, she crammed her backpack with notebooks, note cards, binders and paper. “I love school,” she said.

        It takes a little courage for all of us to get up each day. It takes that much more for a 12-year-old who knows she's different. Jillian pulls on her backpack and her optimism with equal ease.

        “Sixth grade, Dad. I'm almost 13,” she said. If this year is like the past few, she'll labor through at least an hour of homework a night. She'll refuse to take a break until it's done.

        She knows everyone at school. She makes a point of that. The principal at her elementary school called Jillian “the mayor.” At the intermediate school, she was asked two weeks ago to serve as an “ambassador,” helping the fifth-graders through a day of orientation.

        Jillian gives what she has. She will come as close to reaching her potential as anyone I know.

        In some ways, I worry less about her than the Kid Down The Hall, who is 16 and typical. And yet, the older Jillian gets, the narrower her world becomes. I see it when the birthday invitations stop coming, the play-dates disappear, the phone no longer rings. She spends a lot of time in her room, listening to music.

        I wonder how she does at school. I wonder if the kids will stop being gracious. I wonder how often my kid has to eat lunch by herself. I'm buoyed by her spirit but I wonder how much she doesn't say.

        “She aches just like a woman,” Dylan sang. “But she breaks just like a little girl.”

        For any parent, the first day of school is an annual ritual of letting-go. Each year, the spool unravels a little more, extending the distance between parents and kids. The knots become a little less tight, and this is as it should be.

        It's easier with boys. The Kid slams a Pop-Tart, shoulders his backpack and hops in a friend's car. “Have a good day,” I say. “Learn something.”

        It's different with girls. It's really different with this girl. I worry about the ribbons and the bows.

        “C'mon, sweets,” I say. She has fixed her breakfast, finished it, gotten dressed and put the finishing touches on tying her shoes. I send her out the door.

        She runs to the corner, to wait for the bus. “Have a good day, Dad,” she yells back at me.

        It was mostly cloudy on Tuesday, the first day of school. It even rained a little, for one of the first times in weeks. That was fitting.

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