A Moment of Silence
The Dark Knight Rises . . . as do our prayers for the victims of the senseless shootings in Aurora. I hope healing rises too . . . eventually. Drawing by Vincent Conard, my...
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The Faith of My Father
Yesterday was a hard day. It just was. In addition to worrying over Grandma and the health and cognition slowing ebbing from her 93-year-old body and mind, my heart quaked on behalf of my parents and the health challenges they are facing head on. My father, diabetic and with a wound that is not healing, went in for a standard procedure to create blood flow to his legs that are as dry as a desert. As he was prepped for the surgery, his doctor determined his veins were too far collapsed and that he needed another, more involved surgery instead to have a chance at creating a healthy circulation in his lower limbs. I learned all of this over the phone and through the tearful confession from my mom, my sweet Billie Jean. I...
read moreCharis: First Three Chapters
SUNDAY NIGHT Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks. —HERODOTUS CHAPTER 1 A BLACKER BLACK, A WARMER WARM HAD MR. WARD BEEN PAYING closer attention when he walked into Storage Room 19, he might have noticed that the warm was just a little bit warmer and the black was just a little bit blacker than usual. That he didn’t notice those small yet horribly significant details was unusual. The exactly matched blue of his tie, belt, and his shoes and socks betrayed his love for details, details, details; a talent that served him well as museum curator. It was his appreciation for the particulars that brought him to the storage room in the first place. He couldn’t understand how he had missed such an obvious mistake on the inventory sheet, and for such...
read moreThe Ghost of Christmas Past
I just had the most painful memory. I was reading Firefly Lane and a passage referenced some dolls called “Liddle Kiddles.” I began thinking of the many barbies and dolls I had as a little girl and my thoughts came to rest on the Sunshine Family. And then my tears started to flow. It was Christmas time and I must have been around seven years old. There was only one thing that I wanted for Christmas that year and that was the Sunshine Family dolls. They were the fun, hippy, anti-Barbies that radiated all things flower child, nature, and love. They were also everywhere in the commercials, and my friends and I strategized over how to optimize our chances of getting the dolls. I did my part in working on my parents through good...
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