Sunday afternoon sunlight dances through the curtains, playing across the table.  Riley’s fingers tap against the computer keyboard.  She sits with papers strewn—bubble maps for planning paragraphs, comparison notes, an interview answered via email.  She stops periodically to move her finger across the page beside her, pausing to say, “Mom, I need help over here—with […]

She stands just on the other side of the bar as Kevin and I wash dishes, reading aloud to me from a book.  I’ve suggested that she read to herself, but she says she just likes reading to me.  The truth is, it’s easier for her to remember what she hears aloud.  Somewhere, that fact about […]

“What about innocent children with cancer?  Where is god then.” There it is, questioning bold, just below this image: It’s a question for which there are no easy answers, one even believers ask when innocents suffer. Where is the throne of God, the Almighty King, loving, faithful, when this world doesn’t look much like a […]

It’s funny when it’s a game.* I mean, it’s inside joke material that will make us giggle for years, how I got my tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole became Iwo Jima in the space of fifteen minutes.  But the truth is, these strips of paper should be framed as reminders of this: I don’t have all the information. […]

We walk in the museum as the day turns to shadow—my sister-friend and I and our bouncing scribble of children.  Our group moves like an earthworm—fat and thick in the middle, undulating in a thin, crooked line in front and behind.  We are multi-colored coats, scarves, boots and tennis shoes, wading into the snarl in […]

The day Fear lays my friend flat, pressing her back, her head on the hood of my car, the day her tears dot the pavement at our feet, Adam is the only one who knows what to do. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with what he lacks. Adam and I have a routine […]

Adam had been talking about this trip for a week–father and son, side-by-side in a pick-up truck, on their way to the beach. To say that Adam has been talking about anything just makes me smile, because nothing sounds as sweet as his voice, nor does anything touch us quite like his earnest efforts to […]

Something about the way he broke that day reminded me that living is cross-shaped. “Adam has been crying for the last few hours,” she says to me, the aide instead of the teacher, walking carefully to my window as I park the car. “The last few hours?” Oh, how the living hurts, how it drives […]

Sometimes the thief comes early, sliding into our sleep, wrapping his black fingers tight around our throats.  He reeks of murderous jealousy, the kind that killed Abel, the kind that taints every breath and sits heavy on the heart. Zoe stands in front of the dry erase board, not yet fully awake, her hair a […]

Clouds the deepest gray, hovering close, and I gather myself into the van to retrieve my children, preparing for the storm.  It will rain soon, and hard.  I can smell it. And I never have enough for this part of the day. Honestly, I laugh and sometimes cry whenever I hear that someone thinks I […]