In the kitchen, Riley and Zoe bend over a recipe, their brassy heads close, their hair falling off their shoulders. It never gets old, my kids choosing to be together; my kids working side-by-side. I smile, momentarily distracted from my book. “So, do you want to get the sugar while I get the butter?” Zoe […]

tap, tap, tap taptaptaptap, tap I hear it, a sound like progress, the sound of getting-it-done. I follow the sound into the kitchen, driven to the table where Adam works his way through his daily list, the list I made to keep him found and present, to keep him using his mind. Adam leans over […]

Saturday afternoon, I twist in a hammock chair on the back porch, one foot tucked up and the other dangling, a book splayed open in my lap. Spinning my way through a story, here and not here, I rest in the travel lands while Kevin dozes beside me, Kindle rising and falling on his chest. […]

“Hey Mom? What are you doing?” Riley asks, bending over my shoulder with her eyes on my computer, thick, brassy hanks of her hair falling away from captivity behind her ears. She straightens a little, tucks those errant strands back away from her cheeks, never taking her eyes off my screen. Of course, she can […]

Why must we struggle through absolutely everything? Sometimes that question becomes the refrain of a day, the melancholy sigh that sounds as I run out of breath slogging up the hills, as a cramp ramps up in the side of my foot, as I stand in the kitchen cutting chicken with my sharpest knife. Pain […]

On a rainy morning, the drops like sheets, the thickness of clouds casting shadow over waking, Kevin and I wander from our room in search of coffee. Riley pauses at the top of the stairs to greet us, bright-voiced, sunshine breaking. “How are you feeling?” Kevin asks, but seeing her puzzled, wobbly expression, quickly amends, […]

I lose my patience promptly at 11 o’clock, as though the last of it just fell away, grain by grain, at the turn of the hour. “What have you been doing for the last hour?” I ask, bleary-eyed and frivolous, sleep seeping in at the edges of my vision. Riley stands just outside my bedroom […]

The Spirit says, pray, so we do. Happy Friday, friends!

Late afternoon, I fold bath towels, touching the unraveling sides with my fingers, thinking of all the skin these towels have dried, all the cleaning, all the blessing in their worn softness; thinking this can happen to bodies too, that I want to age and unravel through years of humble service. The warmth of the […]

“There you are, Mom,” Riley says, even though I have been walking beside her the last half hour, even though she has never lost sight of me.  She says this with joy and without rebuke, as though I am the prodigal, momentarily disappeared and just returned, as though she’s been watching for me. She continues […]