On the floor of my kitchen, back against my fridge. This is the place where my grief often meets me. It’s the place I found myself when my house was empty for the first time after my husband’s death. It’s the place where I found myself just about every morning for the weeks that followed. … More The Place Where Grief Meets Me
The day of my shipwreck? I mean, talk about semantics. What do you consider the actual day of the shipwreck? Is it just the day that the leak started, that the ship begins to go under? Or is it the day that the entire ship goes down? The day of complete and total submersion? The … More Shipwrecked
“I heard this Dolly song the other day…” I have this reoccurring dream where I see my dad. It’s a different setting each time. Once it was in my childhood kitchen, once it was at the grocery store, once it was in this wooded area which might have been my mind’s very lose interpretation of … More A Life of Many Colors
The flowers were attracting flies. I wish I could give a great, heartfelt beginning to this story. I wish I had some spiritual nudge, some inclination that someone needed these flowers in that very moment. But where this story starts is… I had a lot of really beautiful flowers in my house, and they were … More The Giver of Free Flowers
I never asked for ten steps before I took my free kick. I never waited for the full ten steps when the ref granted it to me without my asking. High school soccer…. It was another lifetime ago. The pre-wrap headbands, the electric tape to hold my shin guards in place, the maddest and happiest … More Still Kicking
“You take him, and I’ll go too.” I spoke these words out loud about a year and a half ago. I spoke them to my maker out of pain, defiance. I spoke them from a place of entitlement, a place of living a life where I could always achieve the things that I wanted to … More Anger 7: Why Have I Beaten This Dead Horse?
“Can you play, Raise a Hallelujah?” I sat up a from the hard pullout couch that I was attempting to make a bed out of, and I looked over at him. I didn’t know if I heard him correctly. I didn’t know if I heard him at all. He laid perfectly still in his bed … More Anger 6: Finishing the Race
My tulips sprouted this week. This shouldn’t be that significant… I mean, it’s March, most tulips sprout in March. But my heart sank a little when I pulled into my driveway, and I saw the little green stocks peeking out of the ground. Andrew’s dad and sister planted these tulip bulbs for us last fall. … More Anger 4: Tulips and Resolution
Just a moment. We are all just one moment—good or bad—away from our whole life shifting course—good or bad. I think about this a lot when people look at me with those sad eyes. I think about how close I was to being shattered at a time when I didn’t even know it. Just a … More Anger 3: The Moments in Our Story
Job… in case you were wondering. In case last week when I said, “No one ever sends you to Isaiah in the midst of tragedy,” you asked, “Well, then where do they send you?” In my experience, the answer is Job. I think this is an appropriate response, really. I don’t think Job is a … More Anger 2: Not That Job-y
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