21Sep 1, 2023
As Kevin and I sit down at the bar to eat our salads, Adam suddenly announces, “word choice practice,” as though it’s a track and field event and we have just found our seats in the bleachers to watch. I’ve noticed that he likes to have at least one witness for this process, which has […]
22Aug 18, 2023
As she walks, baby girl holds on to my friend’s finger for dear life, just the one, in a white-knuckled grip. “You can do this on your own, sweet girl; you don’t need me,” my friend is saying, her coffee forgotten and growing cold on the kitchen table. Baby girl keeps taking those exaggerated steps, […]
23Aug 11, 2023
“Are you Adam’s mom?” Our young friend Becky asks me, lightly fingering a little-girl hairclip at the side of her head, looking up at me with wide, quiet eyes of fathomless blue. I feel touched by the hint of wonder in her expression. Becky must be in the third grade. I had watched earlier as […]
24Aug 4, 2023
When I open the email about Adam’s blood work, I have just finished telling the Lord that I don’t understand why everything always has to be so hard. I know that everything and always are sweeping, emotional words, but God is a sweeping, omniscient God who doesn’t need me to “pretty up” my feelings. I’ve […]
25Jul 21, 2023
I pray with Riley at night. After she brushes her teeth, she comes to get me, shows up beside my bed like she used to as a child, and I lay aside my book and pull my body back out of bed and slow step my way across the hall to her room. Sometimes I […]
26Jul 14, 2023
“Need to go upstairs,” Adam says, the very minute Kevin mentions that we should play a game together after dinner. We gather around the family table, but Adam feels no compulsion to stay, may in fact find the relational atmosphere a bit overwhelming. When we ask him questions during the meal, Adam puts down his […]
27Jun 30, 2023
I stand on my tiptoes a little now to brush Adam’s teeth, reminding myself not to hum aloud the thread of praise weaving through my thoughts because Adam will feel as though, while he’s already telling me it’s time to finish with his teeth, he must also ask me to stop humming, please, because the […]
28Jun 23, 2023
“I’m concerned about Adam’s schedule for the summer,” Riley says to me, folding her hands in front of her and digging one toe into the outdoor carpet on our back porch. The hinges of the door haven’t yet stopped screeching, and a great wind rustles the leaves of the trees, and I take a deep […]
29Jun 9, 2023
In our house, we have learned to keep time this way, in days since the last seizure, but this is not something we carry along, not at all like some battered suitcase stuffed with all our worries and dragged along behind, but rather something acknowledged and touched by our hands and burned in the pasture, […]
30May 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, […]