We walk the winter road like Job’s friends, the three of us–Riley, Josh, and me, coming from a distance, the wind whipping at the hem of my black lace dress, the edge of Josh’s dark coat, the smooth ends of Riley’s brassy bob.  Riley’s eye shadow looks, I notice just this moment, like smudges of […]

In the garage, on the way in at the end of a bruised up day, Riley has another seizure.  Kevin, coming around the other side of the car, sees her stop, notices her sudden silence.  He calls her name, and she turns her head but can’t answer. Stuck, her head bobs, like something sinister has […]

In the yard where the chainsaw growls, I can only see blooms, white like lace, gathered and falling everywhere, spilling onto the road. They’re cutting down that tree. I want to stop and gawk, to tilt my head and ask, Why would you?   It’s a beautiful death.  I’m stunned by the yard that looks like a […]

Raindrops meander down the windowpanes this afternoon, blurring my view.  All day I watched those clouds fill, watched them turn their heavy gray, and now the emptying makes thin spaces for light.  From all the sharp cracking, the twisting of tree limbs, the lurking dark, a new sky will come, and soon. New always, always […]

I do not know all the things she has suffered. But when she comes to the door, looking empty, I think of something Mother Theresa once said about seeing Christ in His most distressing disguises.  I look in her face, and I see Christ.  And I wonder, Can she see Him now, as she looks […]

In the worst moments, our Riley drifts away from us. She wanders somewhere deep and lonely, somewhere we can’t follow.   It happens gradually, the going, the pulling away—a lost look in her eyes, the slow way she moves, the quiet we can feel.  We reach for her, calling her name, and she murmurs, trying […]