family

  • Spring

    Spring

    If you live where I live, you’re seeing everything in bloom.   In my tiny yard alone: forsythia, tulips, hosta, dogwood, phlox, azalea, and even dandelions. In my neighborhood, baby leaves are peeping out and growing more with each day, making a welcome canopy of sunlit apple green overhead. And everyone is smiling: all of this…

  • Life

    Life

    As the calendar got ready to flip to April and the promise of spring, I was sick. On Holy Thursday, I croak-sang through six preschool music classes and by the time I got to mass that afternoon, I was mouthing the words to every song. My duties as a music teacher had spent the last…

  • Not the Farmer

    Not the Farmer

    I caught myself taking back the things I had given to God to take care of for me, and then I remembered the Farmer. A few days ago, I wrote about how a sweet farmer washing new eggs in the back of a farm store came to represent God for me, how this kind, gentle…

  • Thread

    Thread

    I was having trouble sleeping with too many thoughts churning around in my brain. So much is happening in the lives of the people I love, and praying for them didn’t feel like enough. I wanted to place them, physically, in the arms of God. Since I couldn’t do that, I tried something else. I…

  • Carried

    It had been four days of flu as I went to sleep last night, the night before the secondary pneumonia and sinus infections were diagnosed. I fell exhausted into bed, slightly lighter than I have been due to almost a week’s worth of suppressed appetite. My head hit the pillow and as I breathed shallowly,…

  • Late

    I was in second grade, and it was nearing the end of the school day when Ms. Giovanangelo asked if I would bring a paper to the office. Kids were putting on coats all around me, and it was clear the bell would ring at any minute. And though I was a high-achieving, compliant, rule-following…

  • See

    See

    December 23, 2017 Dear God, As we come to the end of 2017, I am reflecting on this year’s word: story. There certainly were ups and downs in these last twelve months, and things I couldn’t have predicted. At the start of the year, I could not have guessed how much I would rely on…

  • Wednesday

    Wednesday

    One Wednesday morning, I was filled with anxiety. There are things I can’t change, as much as I want to. I had not slept well. I went to mass and breakfast with my Dad. I saw Jim O. and Maura T. and Fr. George and each of them was so graceful in their light-bringing that…

  • Advent

    Advent

    It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the traditional start to the Christmas season, but I didn’t feel like Christmas.

  • Frozen

    I went for a run on a freezing day and I was surrounded by ghosts. Surprisingly, I can run longer when the air is cold and the sun is bright, and it was a day just like that, so I took myself down the road past my kids’ old elementary school. The school is closed…