Sometimes reluctance drags at the edges of a smile like invisible weight.  It feels as though the pudgy fingers of some ominous, unforgiving beast stick fat at the corners of the lips and pull down, pulling some rather not place, forcing a rather not feeling.  Reluctance is a bully.  It hauls you in the deep end and […]

He places the card in my hand, lightly fingering the rough fold, the paper blue like a storm in the middle of the afternoon or the ocean in places very deep.  I look at the flat, incongruent edges and see fibers; wet, bruised pulp; dye on someone’s fingers.  It’s remarkable to see the beginnings of […]

They sit waiting–my children and this party of their best friends, a huddled, cross-legged, patchwork group in costumes as vibrant and varied as they.  Even with the house lights dim, I see the startling glint of silver sequins, a neon vest, leotards and athletic jerseys.  I slip into a chair and just smile, holding my […]

For them, this was a game.  For me, this was a lesson in trust. “So, see, what you want to do is collect four queens from the middle,” Zoe says, gesturing expansively toward the center of the table.  “If you get the Rose Queen, that’s very good, because you can immediately draw an additional queen.” Adam […]

“What’s wrong?”  I stand at the bottom of the stairs with one foot propped on the nearest step waiting for her answer, counting the bits of things–bright sock fuzz, some kind of crumb–caught in the nap of that foot-worn carpet.  One more beat of silence and I’ll run up, one answer and I’ll bend down […]

I put a damp cloth in Adam’s hands and point toward the bathtub.  “Go ahead, wipe it clean, now.” “We don’t have to clean the bathroom,” he says to me, because he doesn’t like scrubbing bathtubs any more than most of the rest of us.  And that’s his new thing, as if life spins on […]

We wind our way along Pier 60 just as the sun dips, melting gold right into the ocean. I stand a moment and just breathe, watching the way the waves rise, wind-shaped right out of the glass sea. The pier is a flurry of activity as the city gears up for a festival on the […]

I can hear him beside me and his voice is reverently light, soft and piercing.  But the thing is:  Adam never just sings.  He worships. We sit beneath the trees when the sun is soft and dying.  A breeze blows through–a Spirit-wind, and I hear him quietly crooning, oh the grace reaching out for me.  We’re […]

I find her note on my desk.  It’s just a yellow sticky note written in ballpoint, but the print is her own.  I can almost see her hand gripping the pen. That’s it, a small, blinding-bright effort to encourage, inspired by some of Ann Voskamp’s ideas for living given I’ve slapped up on our refrigerator door […]

A mile from school, Adam’s insulin pod starts beeping, that insistant chirp we once never imagined knowing—one two three, one two three–not an emergency yet, but a countdown to it, and just as the stress knot in my neck begins to ease. “Mom, Adam’s beeping,” Riley says, reporting, as though I can tune out the […]