We wander down the grocery aisle, me with my head buried in a list, Zoe pushing the cart, Riley walking just behind, quietly trying to breathe. Zoe reaches toward me with her eyes.  I feel the gaze grab hard, and I look up and toward my daughter.  Zoe sucks in her belly and stiffens her […]

Walking behind him, I can see clearly that his jeans only just reach his ankles.  The nurse talks over her shoulder—okay, follow me and then some small talk about the weather, the red file folder jutting out, an extension of her hand that messes up all the angles.  She fills the space with words so light […]

“I always eat slowly right before school.”  She says it quietly, when she knows I stand listening, when it’s just the two of us in the room. Two days back to school, and every morning Riley comments that she’s cold and wraps her legs with a blanket.  She sometimes tries to stand so that I […]

Afternoon, and I give thanks that I am sitting alone in the waiting room at the pediatric dental office, because this gratitude always comes fresh.  I never forget the difference between now and then, those days when I held my tears because of his, when it took three people just to clean his teeth.  They used […]

I walk in, and she sits alone on the third row—she, only here to be with; she, who forgets how to breathe when being means there’s just too much to absorb.  She has the courage of a lion, and most don’t even know.  A movie flashes large on the screen at the front of the room, but I […]

I weave my way through aisles, casually lifting trinkets in one hand, weighing their merit as stocking stuffers against the cost, yellow-highlighted on white stickers.  We left home early to avoid the rush, the traffic, and scurried huddled through the icy mist to gather our gifts.  We chuckle, in a jovial but deeply horrified, self-convicted […]

In the moonlight, her eyes sparkle.  She never wears makeup, doesn’t really even prefer it, but she made a concession tonight, for dance.  Just now, as we leave the building, a brisk wind lifts a few errant strands of hair away from her ears.  The stars rest glittery on her cheeks. I hold the door, […]

Evening, and twinkling lights glint on gold thread.  I ask Adam what he wants for Christmas and he says, “Presents.”  The word lights his eyes and tumbles out of his mouth with dancing laughter and an “Oh!” that wraps up the feeling of a bow-topped gift given, handled, expectantly shaken. “What kind of presents?” I say, reaching […]

I don’t know how much time I have left.   Afternoon, and autumn leaves wander and twist to the earth, fluttering through the grass and along the sidewalk.  The sun makes a blaze of the trees.  I stop for a moment just to see, putting down my work, stunned by the fragility of life.  I […]

Sometimes wishing for something else, something better, something other, nearly spoils the planting.  In our hands, we carry seed to sow, seed gritty in our fingers and sweaty in the palm.  But standing in the middle of I don’t want to, we scarely imagine the blooms that will come once we reluctantly leave those hard, dead […]