41Feb 9, 2024
A friend says, the text coming in gently, it must be hard for you to let her just walk through that door. Yes, I type. Yes. I sit in the car, waiting while Riley digs her bookbag out of the trunk, talking to herself in a soothing, rhythmic way. She turns to look at me […]
42Feb 2, 2024
When I get out of the car at the library, I see three children huddled together on the front lawn, their feet hidden in the dewy grass, their bodies turned, their eyes fixed on an old bottle-green minivan. Immediately, I feel a kind of kinship with them, recognizing my spiritual self somehow in the baby […]
43Jan 26, 2024
In the morning, after Riley pads downstairs with the edges of her pajama bottoms dragging the floor, pooling just slightly around her bare feet, she pauses, just out of sight in front of her desk. I don’t have to look to know that even as the sleep still clings to her eyes, she’s flipping over […]
44Jan 19, 2024
I watch Riley’s face as she describes her first in-person day in vocational school, how animated she has become, how her eyes shine and her smile deepens, her voice lilting while she recounts all the details to a close friend of mine who, having come over with a tray of baton cookies in her hands […]
45Jan 12, 2024
We walk the winter road like Job’s friends, the three of us–Riley, Josh, and me, coming from a distance, the wind whipping at the hem of my black lace dress, the edge of Josh’s dark coat, the smooth ends of Riley’s brassy bob. Riley’s eye shadow looks, I notice just this moment, like smudges of […]
46Jan 5, 2024
“So many people still have their Christmas lights out,” Kevin says, speaking our mutual thought aloud into the chilled night as we drive home, as we slow to absorb the weighty glistening that somehow makes everything else feel a little lighter. In every season, twinkling lights remind me of Jesus, the Light the darkness can’t […]
47Dec 29, 2023
I can hear Riley running behind me now, feet crunching on the glittering asphalt, her breaths ragged and shallow, and I smile, remembering a conversation I’d had with her about breathing. Riley has been training to run a 5K. Here we all are, just a few days past Christmas, on the other side of the […]
48Dec 22, 2023
Riley leans against the kitchen counter, waiting out a two-minute timer that counts down while chunks of chicken sizzle in the pan. She holds a fork aloft as she alternately considers the cooking meat and the digital display, as she murmurs to herself about what’s next. I watch her head nod gently as she speaks, […]
49Dec 15, 2023
“What’s your favorite thing about Christmas?” One of the second graders stands in front of me, twisting slightly on her toes, downy soft ponytail swinging, light as air, behind her. “Ummm,” she says, buying time, looking skyward as though rummaging for something in her mind. As the kids walk in for worship, I ask them […]
50Dec 8, 2023
“When it’s time for Adam to do his roller coaster move,” my friend says, speaking of this year’s dance choreography, “we do it one by one, in accordion style, and Adam starts laughing and doesn’t stop until it’s his turn.” She grins, absorbed in the memory of dance practice. I watch faint steam curl out […]