And this: And then, my heart stopped, and because now, he looks like this: And he reads, and in five months he will go to school all…day… long. And, he’s not even my baby.
Full Story »It’s Empty
With its 1,000-sheet commitment, I didn’t want this to end up being an impulse purchase I would later regret. Would I really use the 1,000 waxed-paper sheets, or would I toss the box aside with several hundred still left in the box? When I bough the box at GFS that warm morning one day in [...]
Full Story »A Sense of Home
He’s getting ready to leave. It’s just an all-day ski trip with his friends, but the next day he will leave for a two-day camping trip with another friend’s family. I’m sitting with him in the early dawn, as we wait for his ride, making small talk, and I’m grateful that the house is quiet, [...]
Full Story »Wet Valentines
I got a heads-up before I walked into the kindergarten room, where the valentines were already being gingerly placed into classmates boxes. She said, “I don’t know how you’ll react, but my daughter really likes your son, and she made a special valentine for him. She sat for a long time, trying to figure out [...]
Full Story »I hope you remember you loved this
He studies the garden railroad book. The book with real pictures of miniature railroads. The trains that have real smoke coming from the engines, that climb across miniature bridges, and wind around tiny plants that look like trees.“Can you buy this for me?” I explain that the trains are too fragile for little hands. Your [...]
Full Story »I offer you only one promise…
Have you noticed this? Funerals move too quickly – they close the casket before you’re ready I need — and want — to linger. Is this is a favor? That truck with the dirt shows up as we leave the grave. Please, don’t let me see. He lived a long life so, [...]
Full Story »He’s Buying her Christmas Present
You can almost see the morning sun trying to break through the misty winter fog. The sun is trying to bring warmth and pink to the sky – but the gray fog and mist will have nothing of this brightness. He took his coffee black before he drove off in his 1967 Chevy. He turns [...]
Full Story »Sock monkeys for Christmas
Hey Mom, It’s time to start thinking about Christmas presents. It’s too dangerous to buy the boys toys. Choking hazards and now Aqua Dots and drugs. And even store-bought sock monkeys are a risk. Did you think you’d ever live to see the day when buying one of your grandsons a toy would be [...]
Full Story »Life and death; simplified
So, I asked him, how’s it going at school, and how are you doing about Brownie? “I’m fine. I’m done. I was really sad all morning, but then we went to guidance and we wrote our favorite memories about Brownie. And in the afternoon, I wasn’t sad anymore. But the girls… they just keep crying [...]
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