We gather, curling into chairs and each other, a half-moon twice bonded by blood—blood in our veins and scarlet-robed in Christ. There’s something important about this—the gathering.  Living, we circle each other as satellites, moving in and away, making different bright constellations.  But in these moments of worship, we are all here, all present, all […]

3 am and I wake with a gasp, resurrected from deep sleep.  I am so tired that the word tired doesn’t quite work.  Trampled might be better. It is an unlikely night for a victory. Adam stands next to my bed, shifting, trying for words.  I’m not sure if he touched me or if I […]

“DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) is a medical emergency, and without treatment it can lead to death.” This truth makes me shudder as I kneel beside my son and scrub the leg of his jeans where he points, where some of the toxic sickness missed the bucket beside him and soiled his clothes.  Sick Adam is strong, […]

We walk in the museum as the day turns to shadow—my sister-friend and I and our bouncing scribble of children.  Our group moves like an earthworm—fat and thick in the middle, undulating in a thin, crooked line in front and behind.  We are multi-colored coats, scarves, boots and tennis shoes, wading into the snarl in […]

The day Fear lays my friend flat, pressing her back, her head on the hood of my car, the day her tears dot the pavement at our feet, Adam is the only one who knows what to do. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with what he lacks. Adam and I have a routine […]

Adam had been talking about this trip for a week–father and son, side-by-side in a pick-up truck, on their way to the beach. To say that Adam has been talking about anything just makes me smile, because nothing sounds as sweet as his voice, nor does anything touch us quite like his earnest efforts to […]

Something about the way he broke that day reminded me that living is cross-shaped. “Adam has been crying for the last few hours,” she says to me, the aide instead of the teacher, walking carefully to my window as I park the car. “The last few hours?” Oh, how the living hurts, how it drives […]

She sits, curled on my bed, the polish on her toes slightly chipped, and she reads, absently pushing an errant blonde wisp back from her forehead. I am struck by her beauty, the beauty of having her near. The reading has absorbed her, first her Bible, then the devotional book we gave her for her […]

Clouds the deepest gray, hovering close, and I gather myself into the van to retrieve my children, preparing for the storm.  It will rain soon, and hard.  I can smell it. And I never have enough for this part of the day. Honestly, I laugh and sometimes cry whenever I hear that someone thinks I […]

The waiting settles in—somewhere deep in my bones—laying a heavy hand against my eyes, clouding everything like the veil of early morning fog blanketing the horizon, obscuring the sharp lines of roof tops, cloaking the striving limbs of the trees. Two and a half hours at the doctor’s office, and I come home to dirty […]