Adam shows up at the brunch table on Saturday morning wearing his glasses, a little smudged, because he’s still learning to clean them, and I treasure it up, because he has chosen to wear them on his day of rest. Here I am too, drawing my chair–blue, like a summer sky—up to our table, also […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

I’m driving to school with Adam when the notification comes that Riley has texted, and I smile, knowing that she’s awake and is, as she always describes it, “encouraging everyone on the family Wordle thread.” I can see her in my mind, half risen on one elbow, sleep still hanging about her eyes.  I whisper […]

“You should try this on,” my friend says.  “These are your colors.” These are your colors.  Of course, she means the dress she has pulled out for me, the one that swirls with Autumn colors—olive, tangerine, crimson, gold, but I am thinking how, in scripture, a robe of colors means a robe of grace, how […]

I flip the page on a brand-new week in my planner, wagging my pencil back and forth in my fingers. I had expected to find space for a breath, a quiet stillness on the empty grid within which to pause and practice a Sabbath surrender before writing in my careful strategy for the week. We […]

At a stoplight on our way to school, Adam looks at me, his expression all tenderness, and reaches over to flick my ears.  He leans across my field of vision, glancing pointedly toward the red light before beginning to rhythmically bend and release the tops of my ears, sometimes tugging lightly on the lobes and […]

Especially on Friday mornings, we feel the flat, sharp, immovable borders of our own built-in human limitations, and we groan, searching blindly for a Godly perspective. I’ve come to understand that this is the battle, although on the surface it looks, more practically, like Riley stumbling through our open garage door with teary eyes, her […]

On the Fridays when Josh spends the day with us, Riley, Josh, and I have conversations about what they’ll do for each other in-case-of-seizure.  They sit at the bar, our couple, their fingers interlaced, while I stand in front of them at the kitchen sink, my hands preoccupied with washing. “Now Josh,” I begin.  He […]