il suo tallone d’Achille

19:18 Mar 30, 2020 

My son is 12. I've totally dissolved in an amorphous puddle at his feet. Perhaps that's what's wrong with me. Worse, I love every moment of it! So, yes, like that tiny bit of baby Achilles' body, a little heel – healthy and pink and cute but untouched by the waters of Styx – my son may be seen as my fatal flaw. But we don't have to be so melodramatic and morbid. I'm half-way through my tenth book. It's safekeeping is also my Achilles' heel. It was on my laptop only. I've left the laptop on the airport security belt in Madrid and never saw it again... and my backup disk at home got corrupt. That was very traumatic, believe me! (thank god for the iCloud, god bless it!) So, anything people or a rotten set of circumstances can get to us through is our Achilles' heel. It's a myth, Phil! Myths are nothing if not the symbolic representations of our deepest concerns. They are metaphoric by definition. Achilles' heel, Achilles' shield (cf. Auden)... all of it. Perhaps you haven't noticed, Phil, but now I am being your Syren!!! So hold tight to the mast! :)))

17:40 Mar 30, 2020 

But how can you describe your son as your Achilles' heel? It means something that's wrong with you, a weakness or fatal flaw :-)

16:18 Mar 30, 2020 

and how! In Latin, in philosophy in any language, and in many legal argots, it would be simply "vulnus" – a vulnerable point. My own son, for example, is my Achilles' heel. And so he should be! :)))

15:21 Mar 30, 2020 

metaphorically speaking!!

15:06 Mar 30, 2020 

You don't say whether you're familiar with this phrase, or what your thoughts are, or what the context is. But this sounds like a malapropism - I don't think you can be someone else's Achilles' heel.