Forward

If you remember anything about Robert Frost from your high school CliffsNotes, it’s likely some version of “the best way out is always through.” Maybe that’s true sometimes, but other times I think the way out may be to go back or even to be still. What I’ve come to believe is more true, particularly…

Not Final

Dear friends went to Horton’s today and sent me a picture of my Dad’s headstone. It was just installed and I hadn’t even had a chance to get out there yet. It. Hit. Me. Hard. So final. Final because it was the last task for me to double check. Final because his name is in…

Freedom Thoughts

Today began before the sun fully came up, with loud noises and flashing lights. An ambulance at a neighbor’s house immediately had me praying, and also immediately transported me to the night my Dad died and how the world looked as I arrived at my parents’ house. Red flashes. Red is the color of stop.…

Dear Dad

I’m tired. I’m guessing you know that, but I’m really not sure. Can you see me now, hear me? Do you know the things I’m talking to God about? In the last 6 days, I have thought more about what heaven is like than I did in all the 18,000 days prior to now combined.…

Dad

My Dad has had a very big 24 hours. I imagine on his first day in heaven he got to see his Mom, reunite with all the folks in the great cloud of witnesses that cheered him on during his 82 years here, see all the cats and dogs and horses and fish he dearly…

Freedom

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I never know the right age to divulge more information to the girls. Should I just say yes because they’re going to do it in school or should I really say what I think and practice? And most importantly, will my truth result in an email from a teacher…

Trust in June

I don’t love the month of June. It always brings the chaotic last two weeks of school, which seems fun but really means standardized tests, World War III because of a dwindling supply of the good lunch box treats, and someone telling me at 4:46 pm that by 6 we have to be dressed and…

Fear and Wrinkles

I spent the first 20 years of my adult life battling fear of one sort or another. What if this, what if that? How can this or that possibly work out? What am I going to do? Born in the seventies, my childhood fears were pretty standard for the time: dolls having secret lives as…

Unpopular

I find myself biting my tongue, while screaming at the top of my lungs internally, all the time. It’s just too much right now. All of America, that is - on social media, in the grocery store, in the drop-off line at elementary schools, at school board meetings, everywhere in our government, and with media…