I’ve always had a policy of not crying at work, and with my hard-crusted shell cured in the fire of journalism these past 20-plus years, it’s been pretty easy to keep.

Then I read Sarah Smith Nessel’s Bubble column for this week.

She movingly writes about being the mother of a special needs child. I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll stop there. It’s not to be translated — it’s to be read: Page 43.

I often find myself in that position when trying to describe an about-to-be-published Bubble column to a friend or my husband. “Oh, you just have to read it,” I’ll end up saying. I’ve been known to read her lines aloud, stopping, usually, to laugh.

That’s the thing about Sarah’s gift. She can move us to laughter, anger and tears. (Sometimes in the same column.)

Her mission is to write about the bubble we live in here in Johnson County, and that encompasses the silliness of suburbia, but so much more as well. It’s a bubble of safety, good schools, solid neighborhoods. The economy has threatened it, but for most of us the bubble remains intact for sure.

Sarah pierces our bubble with her laser wit and perspective. When we’re in her bubble, we can’t help but to look at our own.