21Jan 7, 2022
“I need help, please,” Adam says, thrusting his nightlight toward me. “It’s not working.” It can be a whole new year, the midnight sky exploding in colorful stars, manmade light raining toward the earth with sparkling sound, and we can still be on the ground feeling damaged. He draws one long leg up in a […]
22Dec 24, 2021
“It’s so pretty out here,” I say, the words like an exhale. Golden brown leaves skitter across the asphalt, and everywhere I look I see another vibrant shade–the sky, cool blue; the trees, a sunset arch sheltering our pathway. I breathe a prayer, remembering something C.S. Lewis said, something that fits: We do not want […]
23Dec 17, 2021
Riley can’t respond to me when she’s seizing. She can’t answer my gentle pleas for her to come back, though she tries to turn her head toward me and gets locked there, looking back over her left shoulder, eyes seeing nowhere and then straining beyond even me. I glance at the clock, marking the time, […]
24Dec 10, 2021
When the time comes to travel home, Riley throws her arms around Opa’s waist, presses her cheek against his chest and sobs. She comes at him from the side, which turns the whole thing into a wonky lean, especially as she tries to shrink her body down to match her vulnerable feelings. “I think this […]
25Nov 26, 2021
“That’s so sweet,” Riley says, head bent over her phone. At first I forget to respond, or am at least so focused on traffic and stuck in my own muddled mind that I don’t, even though I hear her. So she repeats the comment, glancing up at me, “Aww, that’s so sweet,” her emphasis like […]
26Oct 29, 2021
On Monday morning, I wake up sore. Before I open my eyes, a shadowy thought moves through my mind: I can’t do this. I will not be able to do this. The weekend had been consoling and also desolate. On Saturday, Kevin and I had painted walls (renovation!) until our hands and feet felt swollen […]
27Sep 24, 2021
It can be easy, in a whisper, to thank the gift without thanking the Giver. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but in the evening, sitting cozy while the darkness gathers outside, we admit this to each other. I fold my legs up in the chair, thinking of the way my gratitude sometimes […]
28Jul 30, 2021
We should give this hour a name, when the afternoon swells like a bruise and we all feel molasses-slow, our faces stretched into unending yawns, and still, we have work to do. I want to pour myself another cup of coffee, but I think I have consumed more than enough caffeine today, and something feels […]
29Apr 16, 2021
Riley sits at the bar, fresh-faced and bright, if still a little rumpled with sleep. She looks like Spring, like the first day of sapphire skies; like new flowers with blushing, velvet leaves; like anticipation; like hope sitting right there on a bench in my kitchen., and it’s striking to me because it’s the opposite […]
30Apr 2, 2021
This morning, I feel the outer crumbling, how slowly I waste away–not me, but the shell of me; the me you would recognize; the me you could touch, at least while we’re here. A cellular avalanche starts the moment our bodies begin to breathe; but breathe God and the opposite happens too. The resurrected body, […]