“Hey Riley?” Zoe’s voice comes light from my phone, which sits on the kitchen island in the center of the room as Kevin and I turn and twist around finishing dinner; Adam, announcing his echolalia, paces a fast, hungry track around the perimeter; and Riley sits at the bar facing us, wearing a listening grin, […]

I am with Riley now, on her first day of work, the way I will be with her on the third day, when I walk all the way into the hospital beside her, over those high-gloss floors, our reflections trembling and undulating like we’re walking on water, which really comes down–doesn’t it–to a fixing of […]

I’ve been saying all week, unstoppable smile stretching wide, I get to celebrate Adam, meaning that’s at the bottom of everything, and you will think that’s exactly right, as it should be, when I tell you it’s his birthday. Candles with tiny flames will flicker on top of the chocolate Oreo layer cake he requested, […]

“When are we going to take a look at my planner,” Riley asks me, her voice stumbling along, like tripping feet. I glance up just in time to see a tear slide off the bottom of her jaw and feel, suddenly, the wrenching grip of compassion. Immediately on my feet, I move toward her. We […]

“You’re a healer,” one of my friends says to another, as we sit encircling, an invisible linking of arms. What an absolutely lovely, gracious gift, to heal, and as spiritual gifts are given by God for the blessing of others, I see that my sister lives as a healer for me. I sit in our […]

I don’t know what it is about a free t-shirt, but when the emcee in the arena on watch party night for hockey invites us to get to our feet and make some noise, promising t-shirts, we stand, a whole crowd of us fans hollering like hyenas, waving our arms in the air above our […]

They call him their Adam, these souls walking through the doors into the gathering place where Adam usually stands to welcome them on their way into worship, and, finding his spot blank because he has left his post for a moment, will miss him, will walk over to Kevin expressly to ask, where’s my man […]

In the early evening, my friends and I almost curl around a table scattered with puzzle pieces.  We gently share loose bits of our lives while we look for patterns of color and shape, our voices meandering lightly with our fingers, picking up topics and discarding them—laughter tinkling, or a sigh of concern drifting through […]

Some invitations take a while to receive, and this one had surely waited for me, the corner of an old letter just barely visible at the edge, below a stack of things desperate for sorting, until came the day when, all that clutter finally gone, I at last took it up in my hands and […]

I keep coming back to this, Adam quietly ferrying gifts out the front door, packing our cars the day we traveled to my parents’ house for our annual family Christmas, how he met me at the foot of the stairs again and again, accepting boxes and baskets from my hands with silent happiness even though […]