121Dec 20, 2019
The young man meets us in the parking lot, at the spaces reserved for guests. Before we can get out of the car, he’s walking purposefully our way, wearing a t-shirt that says, Welcome. And so it should be with God’s people, always wearing the welcome of Christ, always walking purposefully toward opportunities to love. […]
122Jul 26, 2019
I remember sitting at a too short Formica table, overflowing a child-sized chair, in the play area where a couple of bright, shiny women evaluated my then two-year-old Riley. Riley, distractedly pushing platinum corkscrew curls away from her eyes, lined chunky animals along a busy, primary carpet in a long, snaking line. It looked like […]
123Jun 28, 2019
Sometimes, I worry my prayers. I squint hard, stumbling over what to say. “I have no words,” I mutter. I take notes, not wanting to forget what I meant to mention. I worry about the public articulation of my need, how I’ll sound. I forget who hears me. Maybe, I misunderstand what He knows already. […]
124May 17, 2019
I look down the row all the way to my three babies, now all taller than me–my girls, their legs curving in all the same places as mine, Adam, with shoulders to match Kevin’s. Laser lights stretch across the room like sunbeams. The beat of the music trembles over my cheeks. Even in the darkened […]
125Nov 2, 2018
From my office, I heard their voices, the soft, deep rumble of Father training son. “Do you still need Lantus?” Kevin asked Adam, who grunted over the forced pause. What is it about us that we resent the time it takes to grow? Lantus is to long-release insulin what Kleenex is to tissue, merely a […]
126Oct 5, 2018
Saturday morning, Adam walks downstairs wearing his football jersey, which is blue like the crisp Fall sky, blue like his eyes. I say walk, but his steps have a certain bounce that matches his wide smile. Maybe autism steals away my son’s words, but Adam’s body has always found its own ways to convey what […]
127Sep 28, 2018
I hear my son before I see him. I know by heart the specific sound of his long, flat feet on the hardwood floor at the base of the stairs; I know the circuitous, spinning route he takes from one room to another, checking for me, checking for signs that nothing unexpected has altered the […]
128Jun 29, 2018
At the end of the day, when I walk in from the shore with the sunset on my cheeks and my skin still warm from the sun, I find the text: I know you’re at the beach, but I just had to tell you what happened today. The text comes from one of Adam’s gifted […]
129Jun 22, 2018
Friday morning, while the light’s still new, Adam slides his Father’s Day gift out of hiding. “Play golf,” Adam says, pausing the game he’s playing on the Xbox, sauntering over to where Kevin and I stand talking, dropping the words like a couple of coins in Kevin’s palm. Adam watches our faces, looking for something–a […]
130Jun 8, 2018
Sometimes, there aren’t words. Instead, there are smells–rotten and sour and wrecked. “Mom Jones? Oh, where is she?” I hear Riley before I see her, hear her thinking out loud down the hallway, peering into rooms, twisting that rope of sun-gold hair absently into an uneven bun. Her hair captures so much light I expect […]