Today, this extravagant Gift: Gently, he traces my cheekbone with the edge of his thumb, just lightly.  It is a simple, wordless gesture, so powerfully warm as to thaw the edges of the day. “I know,” I say, “I have a nasty bump there,” thinking immediately of the blemish on my cheek, red and tender […]

I hear the door open, and with that sound comes the volume of her sadness, the distinct sound of brokenness.  Tears always steal her breath the way they still steal mine, and before I can see her I hear that awful gasp, the way she hungrily stuggles for air.  She cries with her whole body.  The […]

“I understand sometimes she has a hard time, and I don’t mind.  I don’t.  You know?  I let things go.  I don’t make a big deal,“ she says quietly, sipping thoughtfully, sitting carefully across from me at a dot of a table. If we could but offer each other this, that we all make unintentional mistakes.Zoe jiggles […]

“1,2,3…Okay, Mom—I’m going to count how many people signed my yearbook.  Let’s see how many I have.” And she begins again, confident that she has my attention.  “Let’s see, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…and here I have 9, 10, 11, 12,”she says, counting the ones who wrote words and the […]

Tuesday night, Zoe stood on the stage at school, nervous even though she’d said she wouldn’t be; all decked out in black velvet, deep green organza, and the sparkly tights.  They were itchy—the tights—but she wore them anyway, and that’s how I knew what this spelling bee meant to her. That, and the fact that […]