This is the first year that Adam has been able to tell me what he wants for Christmas.  Just a few weeks ago, I stood in the kitchen wrapping my arms around my nine year old son, who laughed but squirmed with discomfort.  I kissed him on the cheek and smiled into bright blue eyes […]

As your Christmas cards decorate our mail with friendship, I give thanks.  I walk down the road, swinging my arms, telling God how He’s always provided someone. I read your notes, happy to see the curves of your handwriting, as personal to you as your fingerprints.  I smile when you apologize, thinking your penmanship a […]

My children live for what’s coming. One of the first things autism parents learn, while the word still tastes bitter in our mouths and progress feels an odyssey away, is that a well-used schedule can change your life.  In the old days, when I still couldn’t quite explain out loud why we all floundered, I thought I’d never […]

The last year I shopped Black Friday, Mom and I sat in a parking lot for two and a half hours, gridlocked, trying to leave.  Our bargains, over which we’d shared exhilarated gloating, sat in their bags, looking less impressive as the minutes passed.  All in all, the madness just didn’t seem worth the money we’d saved. […]

Gratitude is not the festive color of a day, but the shape of a life redeemed. My deepest wish is that Thanksgiving finds you crowded warm around a table, surrounded by joy. I hope laughter makes you giddy, love satisfies you way down deep, and memory soothes like a hand gently resting against your back. […]

“But…I don’t want to be fat.” That’s what Zoe said to me, months ago, her diabetes yet undiagnosed, her body slowly consuming itself.  I looked at her, sitting there at the breakfast table picking at a piece of toast, and I thought, “I wonder when I started thinking that way.” By then, her bones had […]

You say grace before meals./All right. / But I say grace before the play and the opera, /And grace before the concert and the pantomime, /And grace before I open a book, /And grace before sketching, painting,/ Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing,/And grace before I dip the pen in the ink (~G.K. Chesterson, as […]

May your unfailing love be my comfort…(Psalm 119:76) Last night, they sat in the chair together, a boy and his dad.  For years, Kevin’s lap has been the place where Adam finds the most comfort.  In his most terrible moments, when he cries so hard he gasps for air, this is the place he remembers […]

Word to the wise: when you step off the airplane in Mexico, prepare to be deceived. The plane lands, and we share a conspiratorial smile, Kevin and me.  It is the smile of sixteen years as best friends, our souls all blended together; the smile that travels all the way up to our eyes, glinting […]

Just when the caterpillar thought his life had ended, he became a butterfly. ~Proverb For days, we stare at the five chrysalides hanging from the top of the butterfly habitat Zoe requested for her birthday, anticipating new birth.  Transformation is something we are passionate about, knowing it to be God’s skill, His masterpiece.  He’s woven […]