31Mar 17, 2023
In our living room, Josh and Riley stand side-by-side, she, with her hair yanked up in a high ponytail, yanked, like she suddenly does when her mind can’t be distracted by something like errant strands of hair tickling her cheeks, and he, with his face completely open, ready and waiting for whatever I introduce. They […]
32Mar 3, 2023
“Mom Jones, how’s your voice today?” Riley asks, pajama-clad and still rumpled with sleep, leaning against the doorjamb in my office, one hand solidly planted on a curvy hip. She straightens, gathering her hair into a ponytail with her other hand, flipping it absently as she watches my face. “It’s still gone,” I croak, only […]
33Feb 24, 2023
“Mom Jones?” Riley’s voice stops me mid-confession. Jones, what Riley calls “our funny last name,” is a silly joke from years ago that eventually became a sign of Riley’s affection. I look at her, startled out of a full-on run to Jesus. In the space of the last hour, pride and comparison, mistaken identity and […]
34Jan 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 […]
35Dec 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 […]
36Dec 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 […]
37Dec 2, 2022
Gently, I lay a hand on Adam’s back, feeling the knobs of his spine, hard and round beneath my fingers. Silently he watches as, with the other hand, I press a sticky note down on the desk in front of him. At the top, today’s date, scrawled quickly. When matters; it anchors the whole thing. […]
38Nov 25, 2022
In the hallway at our neurologist’s office, as Riley and I breeze along behind the medical assistant on the way to an exam room, I realize again how much my daughter has grown up. It’s a flaw of ours as parents, that while we encourage and facilitate growth in our children, we lack proficiency in […]
39Nov 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 […]
40Sep 9, 2022
From upstairs, I hear Riley saying her goodbyes to the members of her online class one by one, and every time the sentence full, as if acknowledgement simply must not be halfway done. In our home, where Autism rises like a wall, interrupting and limiting relationships, we exchange words as valuable currency; we fight for […]