Just Like Everyone Else

I sat on the bench at the local kids’ play gym, watching my two youngest.  Tonight was the Special Needs Playgroup night at the gym, and about ten families of children were in the huge enclosed space of toys and mats and dress up clothes.  R was working in New York City these days, so [...]

The Will To Live

The look on Paul’s face said everything that I knew but had not allowed myself to think about over the last three days. Paul, the husband of my friend Jewel, was standing at my front door.  It was Friday evening, the darkness spreading early in the cold February night.  My house was loud and bright; [...]

Turning Point

Journal Entry: 12-25-1987 “Today is Christmas Day, 1987. This Christmas seems really humble as far as it goes, pretty ordinary. But I came to a big realization today, and it is embodied here: I trust, I have faith, that I never had before. There is a part of me that is content, even though not [...]

A Word from the Future

I have had a headache for two days, and that’s why I haven’t blogged.  The last time I missed, I had stomach flu.  Don’t worry, I plan on spilling the beans on what happened the night that I lied to my mother and stayed out with my girlfriends and the Older Boys.  Promise. It’s funny, [...]

Headaches and My Mother

My mother had a lot of headaches that year.  When we’d gone to Grand Rapids the year before for Christmas, my mother had spent nearly the entire four day sojourn in bed at my Aunt Maurine’s house asleep.  Everyone said it was a migraine.  It was scary to watch her helpless in bed like that.  [...]