It’s funny how injuries live on long after they’re gone, like ghosts. They even change how we move, but then, inevitably, we bump against them and curse! ourselves for forgetting, smarting over the suggestion of a bruise arising again, as dark as a brooding storm. Everyone knows that once you’ve bitten your tongue, it’s hard […]

Maybe it started with the letterboard sign that caught my eye in September, when it shouldn’t have felt like Fall outside but did, when something inside my heart pulled me toward surrender. I decided to actively anticipate the change of season, to savor the subtle shifts in the light of day, the darker nights, the […]

We take up an entire row in the airplane—Kevin with Adam on one side, me with Josh and Riley on the other.  This placement, of course, has been strategic: the young one with the most fear smack beside his Father, so close he can feel the warmth of him, can hear his dad living, breathing […]

I am strategic about where I place the pillows at night, once-in-a-blue-moon when Kevin travels, when I pad quietly up the stairs to go to sleep, having thought to start the dishwasher that he always starts at the last of the day, having thought—because I have to—to trace his nighttime steps around the house on […]

When I open the email about Adam’s blood work, I have just finished telling the Lord that I don’t understand why everything always has to be so hard.  I know that everything and always are sweeping, emotional words, but God is a sweeping, omniscient God who doesn’t need me to “pretty up” my feelings.  I’ve […]

I stand on my tiptoes a little now to brush Adam’s teeth, reminding myself not to hum aloud the thread of praise weaving through my thoughts because Adam will feel as though, while he’s already telling me it’s time to finish with his teeth, he must also ask me to stop humming, please, because the […]

At the end of the day, while the lights still twinkle in the living room, I crawl into bed and sigh. Few moments feel as satisfying as this one. If energy sparkles in jars—we have this treasure in jars of clay, I’m still radiant, even if I feel as though I have turned up empty. […]

“Aren’t you in the wrong seat?” my friend says, her grin wide, calling out to Zoe. Funny thing is, I’m the only one in the car who feels misplaced. The sky glittered with stars, and we walked through the parking lot, and I saw Zoe turn to look at me, tucking a length of brassy […]

Rushing out of one appointment and late to another, I discover the text: Riley had a seizure. And in one second flat, I feel as though some vile bully just ran by and pushed me off my careful balance, and that even with my angry, road-scratched palms, I am somehow responsible for the world.  Alone.  […]

“So tell me everything you would like to do this afternoon,” I say, pulling a capless pen from the chipped bisque mug on the desk, sliding a notepad in front of me.  Pansies float around the edge of the paper.  The impressions of Adam’s carb counts from breakfast dent the blank top page, making a […]