A finge of black lashes, thick and long shadow his blue eyes. They only partially hide his hurt and uncertainty. They tug at my heart like a messy knotted umbilical cord. “…For the Lord…” Did I do right to correct him? Was he wounded too deeply, was I too harsh? Did my words match the […]
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Her name was Candy. I couldn’t describe her if I had to. I never knew the color of her hair, the width of her smile or touch of her hand. Because she didn’t exist. Yet, every meal time for months, she sat at our table, while my three-year-old conversed with her. So convincing was our […]
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“Pick me up,” my grandson says. He reaches little arms high, and his mommy leans down, puts her hands against his solid tiny body. Her brown hair swings forward and covers the smile I know is there. With a heave, she swings him into her arms. He not much more than a baby, but he […]
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Our middle daughter was about the sneakiest two-year-old imaginable. Quiet, sweet and oh so cunning. But the one sneak I never got used to was the tip-toe out of bed escape. Because she did it so quietly. So unexpectedly. So good. I would round a corner and there she’d stand like a flat Heidi against […]
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There’s a U-haul behind us. I will be home someday, and when I am, the U-haul’s not coming. We’ve been planning this move for a long time, still I feel like it snuck up on me. The details of up-nesting are upsetting, bordering pure torture and filled with absolute mayhem. “Where’s the permit? I put […]
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Sometimes I just want to see to the other side before I get there. I confess to reading the last page of a book to calm my nerves in the middle, or wanting to know the end of a movie before I watch it. I would like to know tomorrow’s outcome for what I am […]
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“Can’t we all just get along?” she asked. Watery pools gathered at the bottom of her eyes ready to splash over, waterfalls of reflected blue. Life as a thirteen-year-old had become invaded with tween girl spite and division. I hate confrontation. I despise division. It gives me a pit in my stomach. That’s not to […]
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Like puzzle pieces of an entire, we can only guess what’s behind the mask as we pass in a parking lot, at work, or in a store. But if eyes are indeed the window of the soul, we should be seeing some deep things even six feet apart. We should be connecting on another level, […]
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This week when I was out walking, I saw a perfect tree. I paused to look up and appreciate the sway in the wind, its colors moving in and out of sunlight, its form and height. Under its outstretched arms I breathed a prayer of thanks. I thanked God for the tree in all its […]
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Every morning I take a walk in the city and pass a spot where I can see a massive field of grain. As I top a hill it’s there. My entire vision fills with gold. Day by day whiter, riper, full of grain almost ready to be harvested. It takes me back to those sticky […]
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