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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She sat on my daughter’s bed, bent forward and fumbling with the gadget on her lap, a thin white line connected it to her ear. Even though I stood across the room, I could hear the music throb. Long black tresses shadowed her face like fingers hiding her eyes, concealing emotion. She yanked one of […]
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A round robin family letter, the kind meant to keep families connected in normal times when coronavirus has nothing to do with being apart pops up in our inbox several times a year. Cousins with blood thick enough to span miles and embrace in-laws, convene together in one compiled letter. Pages long, it’s like the […]
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“The things I do for my kids,” I thought with a half-eaten Big Mac in one gloved hand and piece of wilted lettuce in the other. “But this tops them all.” I stood on a stool leaning into a food court’s garbage bin. I wasn’t happy… Of course, we desperately want them to be happy. […]
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