Search results for: twins

Dear girls, This is the first thing I know about you. You are girls. This is still a stunning revelation to a mom of (previously) all boys. Of course I want to say with hindsight’s surety that I knew, but your father heard those hopeful certainties with pregnancies in the past. He will not believe…

We always hoped for four kids. I can’t remember when the dream started, way back while we were still dating. Sly small conversations trying to sort out where a Significant Other stood on the Big Questions: marriage, family, faith. He was one of four. I was one of five (four after my brother died). We always…

Their feet crush me. Tiny toes curling, ancient reflex. Baby socks lost in the dryer like doll clothing. Toddler tiptoes to reach the sink. Preschool slip-ons for circle time. Sport shoes for season after season—cleats, sneakers, boots.  I know their feet intimately. Kiss them at diaper changes, sweet antidote to stink. Bathe them in bubbles…

Sitting at my desk, working on words of loss, I watch a thousand cottonwood seeds drift by the window. White wisps rising on the breeze, lifted from my sight. Summer’s snow globe, shaken and set to spin. I remember noticing them, as if for the first time, the summer after our twins died. One afternoon…

Advent is a season of strange stories and wonder-full waiting. Angels. Dreams. Miraculous pregnancies. Surprising visitors. But in a season of powerful Scripture and symbols – light, darkness, watching, waiting – we can forget that the first Advent was embodied, too. Without pregnancy and birth – messy, physical experiences – Christmas could not have happened. What…

He and I stare down at the freshly laid gravestone, edged by spring-green grass. “When people come into our office for this,” he trails off, shielding his eyes from the morning sunshine, his weathered face suddenly young in disbelief. “It’s the absolute worst when this happens,” he shakes his head, unable to speak the words…

Here is today’s first reading. The promise of the new Jerusalem, part of the prophecy of Isaiah. Here is today’s Gospel. The healing of the royal official’s son, the second sign in the Gospel of John. And here is my whole heart, caught between the two.  The same Scripture passage from Isaiah was read at our daughters’…

Last week we watched Irma, that swirling monster of a storm, with twisted stomachs and sick hearts. Friends we love live in Florida. We wanted them to be safe, their homes to stay dry, their schools and workplaces untouched. We read their anxious updates, prayed for protection, watched the weather forecast. It looked like the…