I remember the year that opening gifts made my daughter weep. She stood in front of me, just there, tight blond curls falling haphazardly around her ears, belly pudging out the shirt of her Christmas pajamas, holding a silvery gift.  At 3, she still didn’t understand our expectant faces, or even what made toys fun, […]

“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 […]

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 […]

Saturday night, and the descent happens just this quickly: We sit around the table licking frosting from our fingers, when she finally lifts her cupcake in one flattened palm, admiring the shape of it from all sides.  She has her own way—her own “technique,” she says—for savoring food.  When it comes to cupcakes, she tastes […]

Twilight comes, and she’s a bright star, throwing light so stunning I can hardly look away. There’s a Hebrew word for praise, a primitive root, that also means to flash forth light, and since we arrived in the ampitheater and the music floated out and up, she has shone, spreading her fingers wide, offering up […]

Just as the morning becomes, we run together beneath the sun.  A light breeze wraps our shoulders.  I glance up at the sky—blue, the color rich like Morpho wings, with wisps of sea foam cloud.  I stare hard, gasping.  Day after day, the heavens pour forth speech.  “They have no speech, they use no words; […]

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 […]

In the worst moments, our Riley drifts away from us. She wanders somewhere deep and lonely, somewhere we can’t follow.   It happens gradually, the going, the pulling away—a lost look in her eyes, the slow way she moves, the quiet we can feel.  We reach for her, calling her name, and she murmurs, trying […]

I live my life on an unpredictable sea.  I’m guessing, but I think maybe you do too. Storms come without warning, and I fly overboard, plunged beneath the swells. Mother’s Day, and I sit at the table with Adam while Kevin puts the finishing touches on lunch–the beef stroganoff that has been simmering in the […]