51Sep 30, 2016
I ask them to tell me something good, something grateful, something excellent, right there in the last light of day, and she grins at me, dipping her chin into the shadows. Coming home, Zoe says. It’s the thanks-giving she offers every day. She tucks her hair behind her ears as she says it, still grinning. It’s […]
52Jul 15, 2016
In the dark, we slide our feet into flip flops, creeping out the door with steamy mugs of coffee balanced in our hands, with plump towels draped and dangling from our arms. Whispering, we search the sky for signs of first light, for wisps of cotton-candy pink. Carefully we descend the stairs, touching foot […]
53Jun 24, 2016
I love the light when it’s fresh at the start of the day. It’s like a clean window we’ve not yet touched with our fingers; like the diaphanous edges of some sacred space. Sitting on the porch in the morning feels like resting in the palm of God’s hand as He slowly opens his fingers. This […]
54May 20, 2016
Waiting at the stoplight on the way to school, drizzle dotting the windshield, and I grab my phone to take a picture of my daughter. The cloud-cast makes her skin look more alabaster than olive-gold; makes her blue-gray eyes look stormy. “What’re you doing?” She asks. But I catch the hint of a smile, just […]
55Apr 29, 2016
My daughter is sixteen, so for her birthday we throw a big party at the building where our church meets. And I receive this: a solid view of friendship. “Do you need help?” My friend asks, not in a maybe-I-can-do-a-few-things-if-it’s-convenient kind of way, but the way she always does, as though she’s already climbed up on that […]
56Apr 22, 2016
Middle of the afternoon and I’m goofy-grinning over an armful of sorted socks, their neat little knots all white like dumplings; grinning even as they bob out of my arms and roll on the floor. I’m not going to lie. Something satisfies me about folding laundry. I love those warm stacks with the clean-tucked edges, […]
57Apr 8, 2016
“When I struggled so much with anxiety, God taught me to pray,” Riley says, lifting her hand and turning it over, as though neatly wrapping the words, a gift. And then, when later we reach for each other’s hands, she quietly asks God to help her brother talk to us. Maybe she’s just following Zoe’s lead. […]
58Apr 1, 2016
Adam finds me sometimes, just to talk about the things that excite him. I’m one of the few with whom he’ll take that still awkward step, because he can appreciate the way that I know him, the way womb-forged bonds overcome every other kind of separation. I almost always know what Adam means to say before he says […]
59Mar 11, 2016
Today, just a prayer, whispered, then fervid and carpet-muffled because that’s where I plant my nose. I can’t seem to bend low enough to accommodate the feel of Him. It’s a prayer I need, one I offer often in some garbled, half-torn way. But He knows all the parts, so I don’t have to remember them, […]
60Dec 4, 2015
“You know, even pain is a blessing,” he says to me, standing in the doorway still, where cool ultraviolet light bounces against glossy floor, where the warmth of conversation and reunion and the savory smell of roasted yams and honey ham and three variations on stuffing gives the whole room a burnished tone. Right there, after delivering that […]