He laughs now, this rolling plump of a babe. Chortles like a chuckling gentleman when I tickle under his chin. The laughter is intoxicating; we are all addicted. His doting brothers swarm the changing table for a chance to coax out another. In the instant when his round eyes brighten and his soft mouth opens to laugh, I am swept inside. Everything becomes this moment: joy that totalizes. As soon as the moment evaporates, I come back to present and realize: Once upon a time I did not believe I would feel the pure shine of happiness again. What grace of a second chance. What gift from grief. The still-joys. . . . The world is a wasteland, again and always. If you only trust the headlines and the handwringers. Meanwhile most of us go on, quietly doing the unnoticed work that underpins everything. Emails and deadlines. Laundry and dishes. Building and mending. Helping and forgiving. My mother used to tell me that every generation was convinced it was the … [Read more...] about come, the still-joys
Christ
was it a holy week?
This week we remembered the anniversaries of Maggie and Abby's births and deaths. As I journeyed through the three days, a brutal triduum, I began to see how deepest grief can take the shape of the paschal mystery. Dying and rising. As the first year after loss ends, I find myself turning toward new directions. I will not be writing only honest grief in this space; there are new callings. So as Lent begins, this feels a fitting end to what the last year has been. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. . . . Birth. It is the beginning of the scar, the longest on my body. The scalpel that sliced through stomach, layers of skin and muscle, to pull two tiny babies into the world. They are too small to cry. But I do, quiet tears streaming down my face. My arms cannot wipe them away, strapped down and stretched out to both sides. This surgery is cruciform; nurses do not tell you that in pre-op. Then again, how could they possibly prepare you? Did anyone … [Read more...] about was it a holy week?
to live with our wounds
Our daughters have been dead for longer than they have been alive. This is a terrible sentence. It is also our new life. Every day I live in the space in between. I swing between extremes, a dizzying pendulum from possibility to reality. What I thought my life would look like - and what it is now. What the world expects of me as a normal adult - and what I feel as I try to function. How many children I have carried - and how many I tuck into bed at night. I look back over the past six months, and I see each shade of grief bleeding into the next. Watercolors from where we were to where we are. Only when I look from the beginning - painful dark, unbearable to behold - all the way to the softer, open present do I see the sea change. Grief's hues lighten as time passes, but they also deepen. This permanent stain is now the color of my life. For months I told friends it felt like my molecules had been rearranged. The metaphor made sense to me even if it made sense to no … [Read more...] about to live with our wounds
7 reasons I love the Eucharist {the feast of corpus christi}
Bodies. Blood. Bread. Brokenness. My children bring all of this into my life. Care for their bodies takes up hours of my day: washing faces, changing diapers, giving baths. Boyhood brings bloodied knees, scraped elbows, tears and band aids and doctor's visits. Feeding our family is nearly a full-time job in itself: planning meals, buying groceries, cooking dinner, baking bread. And brokenness? Well, families don't have to go far to find proof of faults and flaws and failings. We rub up against each other all day long. The Eucharist has never felt more real than it has since I became a mother. This is my body; take and eat; blessed and broken - almost everything I have learned about the love and sacrifice of parenting is wrapped up this sacrament at the center of my faith. So in celebration of this Sunday's Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ), here are 7 reasons I love the Eucharist - and 7 favorite posts to explain why... It re-members me back … [Read more...] about 7 reasons I love the Eucharist {the feast of corpus christi}
