I was eight or nine when I first started feeling responsible for those silly, ridiculous things. Maybe even younger than that even. Which is not to say that I wasn’t perfectionist from the very start. My mother tells me that she once caught me picking up miniscule pieces of white lint off our red industrial …
Minus 37 with the wind chill factor. That one hour school delay affording the buses an extra hour off for idling- it should have been the ticket, really. There I was. Bleary-eyed from a night of restless sleep- worried over deadlines to come, papers to write, classes to teach and examinations to prepare for, jarred …
Dear Son: It is three days past Christmas and yet the varied strands of lights on our tree still burn brightly, as if they truly were soft candle-light glow. I write you tonight, pensively. For there has been much on my mind since the mad scramble of Christmas morning. There has been much weighing on …
I park my van in a drift of snow, opening the door before realizing that the walkway has not been shoveled. I retrieve my bundle from the seat beside me and head back out. This time, I take the road. I turn and walk up the ramp and push open the door. The sign stuck …
There is a pink Littlest Pet Shop kitten cuddled up in the Virgin Mary’s lap. It is sharing a spot with baby Jesus, vying for the most coveted spot in the nativity scene. And I found presumptuous Her when I was picking up the umpteenth dozen leftover toy there in the fireplace room tonight, toys …
Monday weekend news in the kindergarten classroom. I am listening to stories about everyone’s weekend and I get to the last little rascal and I ask him, “What happened to you that was exciting this weekend?” And he proceeds to tell me (with the saddest, most downcast face a darling boy could muster) that his …
Thirty-one years today since that pick-up truck plowed into her little car, leaving her motionless. The spark snuffed out. Leaving her to sit and moan the occasional word. Rubbing constantly at her crusted eye, still swollen shut. Her lifeless hands and legs. No animated gestures to light up a room. They’re nearly all but gone, …
Me (on my way up to the bathroom with the phone in my hand): “Guys, I am going to make an important phone call to someone VERY IMPORTANT. I am going upstairs to make that call. Please do not fight or scream while I am on the phone.” Oldest Daughter: “Well, that’s offensive….” Two minutes …
I might just be the world’s worst hospital advocate for my sickish children. Not to say I always was: just saying that with age and experience also comes both insanity and exhaustion. And deterioration. Mental breakdown. Brain cell reduction. Which is to say that I think my brain has (obviously) lost a little of its …
What is it about falling snow that captivates the imagination like nothing else I know? What is it about the first snowfall of the season- and the next and then the next that just creates a feeling of contentment and joy? That fills a heart with gladness. What is it about falling snow that just …
The Christmas season was approaching and she felt an overwhelming sadness. The world around her seemed sad too. Distressing news abounded- from the biggest of stories to the heart-breaking ones that few ever heard. Even the weather seemed dismal at times: cold and dreary. One star-lit night, she found herself driving a familiar road. It …
There are some things I cannot change. Even if I tried. I cannot change my nightly routine of making my way into all my children’s bedrooms, smoothing back hair with the palm of a hand, kissing damp-haired foreheads in the shadows of a dimly lit room. I cannot change that. I cannot change that I …