I hadn’t really wanted to get up when the alarm went off, but I did because she’d asked me to come. This was the daughter who’d recently begun to like me again, and I wasn’t going to miss it. Josie Love was in art school for the summer and had invited me for her mid-summer…
Baby fever is real. I know, because I was burning up with it. I spent a year giving myself shots in my backside and putting lozenges under my tongue and graphing my morning temperature and demanding sex because my chart said to. And then, I gave up. No baby. But there was this achey, constant…
She got out of the car and loaded my suitcase in the trunk, a whoosh of stale cigarette smoke and ash exhaling with her, as if the car itself were trying to get a fresh breath of air. Debra, the Uber driver, slunk in behind the wheel, her head down, shoulders slumped. My goal was…
This is a story about me and my baby, who’s now 22, and the misery we walked through together to find a love connection. It’s a story of our mutual failure, but it’s a story with a happy ending. I lived the miracle. I watched it change me. And then I watched it change my…
I’m awake and up before The Cowboy has gone to bed. It’s 1:21 a.m. and too darn early. I went to bed at 10, but I’m wide awake now. I’m afraid I’m getting weird. Unbalanced. And while I really love getting a jump on my day, I’m also afraid I’m getting pulled out of sync…
We had a threat of frost predicted for 2 a.m. Unsure of whether or not the pots I'd planted at church would make it--with Easter coming up, it seemed a shame to risk it--I grabbed garbage bags and shish kabob skewers and headed out. I hadn't bothered to unload the yard tools that were in…
Hardly churchy, much less Presbyterian, our pastor steps aside the Sunday after Thanksgiving rather than preaching and lets anyone who wants to, step up and tell what they're thankful for. David, age 8, thanked God this morning for getting to watch anime on his computer and for cars, "just for lots of cars," he said…
My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
I was dragging my feet getting ready. For as long as I can remember, we've had an open mike for folks to share their thank-yous the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Children often go first and warm up the crowd with sweeping praises, "Thank you, God, for the whole wide world," and with smaller ones, "We have…
My phone dinged, “How about a hike?" came from daughter in law, Lollie. They picked me up a few minutes later, and we were off for The Pocket Trail in Chickamauga, GA. The boys were strapped in back when they arrived, listening to Harry Potter. Lollie seemed different--serious and quiet. Once we were on our…
Ransom Bruce Harris was born to doula-daughter, Sadie, and her hubby, Bryan on February 7. Sadie made sure to do all the training she’d been coaching her mamas to do over the years and was in wonderful shape for an easy delivery. Only there were other plans in place. After a nearly 30-hour labor and…
Cries from my children used to wake me in the middle of the night, and after that, my teenagers’ calls saying they’d be late. Now, it’s a call from the bathroom. There are also the unexplained wake-up calls, the ones that tug me out of sound sleep for no reason I know of except to…
The nest is empty. Our last fledgling is settled into college dorm life and has already slept through his first test, while his mama-bird, blissfully unaware, awoke to her to-do-or-not-to-do list, none of it involving him. I've been preparing Stone his whole life--and myself all year--for when he would be washing his own socks and…
I ordered my dream bed from a shop on Etsy, a carved and distressed French Victorian fit for a king and queen--or wannabes. I ordered it in late February and received it sixteen weeks later, a sign that unless the New Jersey shop owners were felling trees and building beds on demand, my bed was…
It looked like the perfect spot for our family's vacation: a rambling lakefront home in an out-of-the-way cove with covered dock, lots of porches, and plenty of bedrooms for our growing family of 15 with two more on-the-way. It's a challenge to find a house nice enough that merits dropping everything to be together for a week, but not…
The ache in my chest was a tight knot, a familiar feeling. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care, to push it down as I always had. I went for a bike ride on our trails, straining hard against the pedals to climb pasture hills as I pushed hard on the knot to force…
It never occurred to me to check my passport status. At least, not until 20 hours before our flight took off. I'd checked Stone's passport details thoroughly when I booked a trip with friends for spring break. He was 19 now; would his passport from age 16 still be accepted? As it turned out, it…
I’m heading to New Jersey, writing as I fly. It was cold and gray in Atlanta when I left, and it is colder and grayer where I’m going. According to my weather app, Princeton will have snow tomorrow. Right now, I’m looking forward to breaking through the clouds outside my window to the sunshiny blue…
She was talking, but I wasn't listening. I was thinking about what I wanted to say. I don't have to tell you how popular this weakness of mine isn't, especially with my own family. "So what's your experience been?" she was asking. Caught red handed, I had no idea what she was talking about. "The…
I was feeling out of sorts because I hadn't really wanted to come. I didn't want to go to church last Sunday either, and I didn't. I've realized over the last few nights that I haven't been listening to what I've read in the Bible. I've read hurriedly, just to get through it. I’ve…
