11May 26, 2023
Home from wrestling the road and picking up my young adults, I take up the work where I left off, affixing congratulatory labels to some cookie bags I’m assembling for the kids who will transition out of our children’s worship group to another grade level this Sunday. The bundles are love and sweet and joy, […]
12Apr 21, 2023
The moment Adam and his friends take the stage, their faces lighten with sudden recognition, as though with the stage lights beaming and the violins singing and the performance blooming, they have all at the same moment just realized they can dance. Their mouths relax into broad grins, and gradually their lips slide apart, and […]
13Mar 31, 2023
I wait through traffic with a prayer on my heart. Adam sits beside me, bobbing his head in time to the music—what a beautiful Name it is, having dispensed with my pick-up pleasantries about his day with a perfunctory, “Good,” as in, it was good and that’s all there is to say about it. As […]
14Jan 6, 2023
Josh hands Riley a gift bag, jolly red and green, plump with surprises and spilling over with tissue, and we all sit forward, anticipating grace. All through Advent, I have been thinking: On the surface of things, at least according to the understanding of their time, Mary and Joseph should never have married. I’ve been […]
15Dec 30, 2022
I run my finger over the scars on the dresser in my bedroom, Grandma, twice etched, raw, like an incision in the wood in Riley’s handwriting. Always in twos. I murmur the dark echo of an old cliché, the shadow of an old joke still half bitter to me, but only by half, because God […]
16Dec 23, 2022
Home from carpool, I pull the wet, clean clothes from our washer and toss them, with a shake, into the dryer. I can hear Riley in the kitchen, her voice bright and morning-new, counting to Christmas. “Just 18 more,” she says, with enthusiasm, but I push the button on the machine and lose the rest […]
17Dec 9, 2022
We gather as family around the table to celebrate Josh’s birthday—Camille and Ray and Kevin and me with our kids, all following the hostess in the Japanese restaurant like ducks in a line, and I count the blessing. In my heart, every meal is a eucharist. And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it […]
18Nov 18, 2022
From the sixteenth floor of The Carolinian, Kevin and I watch the sunrise. We sit on the balcony, sipping steamy coffee, gasping over the vastness of the sea, stunned by the silvery surface of the water reflecting the sky, threaded suddenly with amber and gold. The perspective up here on the balcony reminds us of […]
19Nov 4, 2022
Riley walks in carrying a package, her arms wrapped wide around a big plastic mailer, and I suddenly remember to receive God’s gifts and give thanks. “There is a package for Mom,” she says, her chin bobbing against the load,” and I’m guessing it has something to do with Christmas.” She’s right, of course. To […]
20Apr 1, 2022
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 […]