ESSAYS
A Turn of the Kaleidoscope
It was a long-overdue dermatologist appointment. With my pale skin and family history of melanoma, I really need to be checked every year, but it had been more than five since I’d donned an open-backed gown; this was just one of many things that got lost in the shuffle of mothering small children. When I…
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Our Undoing is Our Becoming
This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you. How many times had I heard these words at Mass, even though I had converted only in young adulthood? The passion narrative punched me in the gut every Palm Sunday with the retelling of Jesus’s suffering and death.1 The same crowds…
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Love and Hope in Troubling Times
“Let’s be present in the rain.” It was the end of May: precisely that time of year where I’m reeling from the exhaustion of both teaching and parenting. There is so much that happens in May; it’s the busy culmination of the school year where the days get longer and evenings are peppered with band…
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You’re Doing Great (and Other Truths from God and Bluey)
“You’re doing great.” Three words from a cartoon dog were all it took to wreck me. They’re said in an episode of my son’s favorite cartoon, Bluey. (Ok, my favorite too.) The title of the episode is “Baby Race,” and in short, it’s a seven-minute emotional roller coaster where Bluey’s mom, Chili, shares the story…
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Ferocious Motherlove
It was my second-born son’s first date night, and the cute couple had planned an evening at the Washington County Fair with his big brother and friends. That night, I couldn’t wait to hear how it went. I envisioned them leaning close in their baggy jeans standing in lines below bright jolting rides, drinking torso-sized…
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Me, the Emotional Metronome
I stared at my work calendar on the computer as a sinking feeling washed over me. I had opened the calendar to place an important appointment for a child only to realize I was already scheduled for an all-day training. I quickly dialed the doctor’s office. No open appointments for weeks. I quickly called older…
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Shadow Revelations
Everything felt heavy. My eyelids, the child in my arms, the unrelenting stretch of time before dinner. I lugged my son over to the swing set, managing to convince him that this would be an acceptable next step in our park experience. I stood behind him and pushed, the effort demanding the last dregs of…
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God’s Fingerprints On The Hardest Days
“You need to leave from here and go directly to the hospital. He needs to be admitted tonight, and he will need surgery.” There is so much I don’t remember about this moment. Was my 8-year-old son Andrew in the room with us when the orthopedist said these words to me? He must have been,…
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Never In A Million Years: Playing the Parenting Game
Most days, I pop into my teenage boys’ rooms to plant a kiss on their heads. Sometimes it’s because I walk by, see their sweet little (actually, big) selves at the computer, and have the urge to say hi. Other times I realize I haven’t seen them in awhile, so I stop what I’m doing…
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Why I Stay
There are days when I wonder why I’m still in the Church. Days when I am so jaded by the politics and hypocrisy and scandals that too often haunt our Christian communities that I wonder if there is anything left of the Church worth staying for. Is there anything left for my children to learn,…
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Fighting For Our Lives
“I am very frustrated. I don’t understand why you can’t just be confident in our care!” My perinatal specialist yelled these words to me when I was around 24 weeks pregnant with quadruplets. Why? Because I was asking her questions about what my children’s birth might look like. Up to this point, no one had…
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Becoming Mama Bear: How losing my husband introduced me to a ferocious divine love
When our children were young, my husband Rob and I often took them for hikes in the nearby Cascade Mountains outside our home in Seattle. Home to approximately 20,000 black bears, Washington’s mountains required a healthy respect for wilderness, and we taught our kids how to do it. A hearty “Hey, bear!” alerted furry neighbors…
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