“When it’s time for Adam to do his roller coaster move,” my friend says, speaking of this year’s dance choreography, “we do it one by one, in accordion style, and Adam starts laughing and doesn’t stop until it’s his turn.”  She grins, absorbed in the memory of dance practice.  I watch faint steam curl out […]

“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 […]

“But, I’m not a baby,” the boy says, looking at up at me petulantly, with dark, bottomless eyes, his lips pursed in a pout.  “I’m eight.” Suddenly, I remember the voice of Jesus, calling us all his little children, even though some of us like to think we’re adults. I had called the boy Joshua […]

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 […]

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 […]

A hundred Loggerhead hatchlings struggle out of a nest. Zoe and Kevin and I happen to walk by on our way to save the world, our hands carving the air as we talk, our feet encrusted with sand. A woman waves to us, beckons with her arm, come and see, and I wonder momentarily if […]

tap, tap, tap taptaptaptap, tap I hear it, a sound like progress, the sound of getting-it-done. I follow the sound into the kitchen, driven to the table where Adam works his way through his daily list, the list I made to keep him found and present, to keep him using his mind. Adam leans over […]

Within the first five minutes of her arrival, our new friend Stella sits doubled-over, arms folded tightly against her waist. It’s move-up morning in kids’ ministry, and Stella has just finished the first grade. This is her first time in the chaotic whirl of the older elementary group. A young friend pats my back, interrupting […]

Mid-morning, and my friend and I wander to the table, navigating around stacks of books and piles of tools, cardboard boxes, the basket of beach towels that belongs in the linen closet. The innards of several rooms sit on my living room floor, as though we turned the walls inside out and shook loose the […]

On a rainy morning, the drops like sheets, the thickness of clouds casting shadow over waking, Kevin and I wander from our room in search of coffee. Riley pauses at the top of the stairs to greet us, bright-voiced, sunshine breaking. “How are you feeling?” Kevin asks, but seeing her puzzled, wobbly expression, quickly amends, […]