There are those among us who have seen things – things we wish we had not seen – and we will never be the same. We walk around like everyone else. We go to work, buy our groceries, and wash our cars. But there is a pain that would glare as brightly as a neon …
Sometimes we get a front row seat
If there is no God, then who just bought my lunch? I had been having a bad week - well, more like a bad month - but all of a sudden, everything changed for the better in ways I never imagined. This doesn’t mean God is real. Nor does it mean things are …
dirty dishes piled high and appointments forgotten
I am sitting in a hospital waiting room, watching the TV monitor update me on the progress of my child. The color of his chart just changed to blue and a new word has appeared below his name. INCISION in Arial font point size 24. Someone is cutting my child. …
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the incredible weightless weight of my child’s child
I won’t be around forever. Someday I will be nothing more than a handful of memories shared on holidays, a dozen stories passed around the dinner table, and a hundred bedside prayers providing protection for years to come. But when I’m gone, there will be people in this world who will remember what my …
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bedbugs don’t make for a very happy birthday, even when they’re only in your imagination
My birthday was on Monday, but instead of waking up to breakfast in bed, I woke up to another day of dealing with bedbugs. I had spent the previous day with box of black garbage bags and a day's wages in quarters, transporting clothes from the bedrooms to the laundromat in an endless procession of …
What to do when you find yourself skidding
There are parts of my story I wish I could forget. Parts that still make me cringe, all these years later. Parts that just happened I might have avoided, only I never saw them coming because I was looking the other way for a moment too long. My life is like the Midwest in …
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As real as the smell of coffee in the morning
There are sheep and there are shepherds and being a sheep without a shepherd is one thing, but being a sheep with a shepherd is a horse of an entirely different color. You might say I'm wearing blinders, that the world has evolved and no one needs anyone except maybe themselves. You might think I'm …
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A round-trip ticket to colorfully sketched places
You don't know me yet, but you will. You're going to know me as the one who makes cookies and lets you lick the spoon, the one who tells funny stories about your mom, and the one who gets wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she laughs. I hope you love my cookies …
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Not for all the tea in China
I would not wish you small again, not for all the tea in China. Your chubby little arms that circled my neck every morning when I lifted you from your crib forever softened my spirit. The baby-lotioned scent of your weight in my arms and the love-struck sound of my own off-key …
No one wants to see all that, not even the Russians
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but then pictures don't always tell the whole story, which is something I have learned on social media. We say we're keeping it real when we post our “nailed it" photos of the three-tiered cake we tried to bake for Grandma's birthday, or when …
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