All the way to school, Riley reads me her birthday messages, one after another, turning down the music as she clears her throat. All of this affectionate acknowledgement adds up as evidence to one solid truth that right now glows on Riley’s cheeks: I am loved. It’s the one thing we all need to know–I.am.loved, […]

Mid-morning, and my friend and I wander to the table, navigating around stacks of books and piles of tools, cardboard boxes, the basket of beach towels that belongs in the linen closet. The innards of several rooms sit on my living room floor, as though we turned the walls inside out and shook loose the […]

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, […]

The curtains open and the music swells, and I imagine flitting, light-winged, across the stage, which looks blue, lit like the sky. I imagine the freedom of soaring, the air wrapping about my waist like a pair of lifting hands. They will soar on wings like eagles, I remember. They will run and not grow […]

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

Restoration fills our talk of home. Kevin and I never finish the conversation. We watch Riley pause in every doorway whispering some memorized OCD monologue, bending at the waist like a bobblehead doll, and Kevin says to me, “One day, she’s going to fly through doorways.” Adam stumbles over answering a simple question, searches his […]

My first thought, when Kevin casually mentioned the coming rain, the bone-cold breeze, the silent freezing night, was that the blooms would die. I peered out the back window, watching the pear tree dance, decked in blooms like a lacy bride, pure, new, completely vulnerable to the fury of unvanquished Winter. All week, I had […]

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 […]

In the middle of the morning, I step back from the window, from that view of heavy clouds and leaves dripping rain like a cleansing grief, and feeling my own vulnerability, I wander down the hall to my husband. I walk in the room and he turns and I step into his arms without saying […]