We were walking out behind them as they sauntered along ahead of us, traveling through the automatic sliding hospital doors, into the mid-day sunlight. He was holding her arm with the left hand, her black and white toile purse snugly tucked underneath his right. She had a cane, but he had her. He stopped to …
When I walked up the narrow staircase one week ago today, darkness had already enveloped our country home. It was night-time, around 10:00 p.m. when I knocked on your closed bedroom door, asking if I might come in. You were reading, a bed-side light shining its sheen across the page. The room was awash in …
He clutches his ‘nearly-the-size-of-him’ backpack tightly to his chest. His shoes, somehow having landed on the wrong feet, stand motionless- flaps to the wind. But thankfully we remembered the bus pass. He holds the tiny stub of paper with the little bit of tape I stuck on for good measure, absently rubbing it against his …
Come look at me, they cry out. Little voices calling, tiny hands reaching for my own much larger one. Watch me on the money bars, the slide, the firepole. Watch me! Notice Me! See me! A little one comes up to me, (I know not who she is), but she has a sweet innocent …
I have been genuinely, touchingly moved beyond words by the crisis amongst refugees and peoples in places all across our globe. Heartbreakingly shattered by the stories of people who are living in worlds that I cannot even imagine. I am unequivocally dismayed by scenes of devastation and wretched living conditions that scroll across my screen. …
My Own Precious Four, The air felt chill and brisk as I headed to the local dairy bar with ‘two in tow,’ for one last treat before school officially begins on Tuesday. One had an English Toffee Milkshake and the other tried her luck with the Nutty Chocolate Dip. We watched the server hold the …
And so it is that I find myself sitting across from her—me on a bar stool, her at the head of the table. Morning sun struggles to make its way through heavy cumulous clouds that intermittently spit rain. The air, still heavy with humidity despite this occasional leak of moisture. I hope it will …
Come, thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love. O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m …
I happened to come across the now-viral video clip of a little boy being asked if he would miss his mom on the first day of school. A question to which he promptly exhibits visibly with quick tears that ‘yes,’ indeed—he will. The shot shows him running into the safe arms of his mother, with …
Teachers have powerful stories to share. There are stories of triumphs and stories of failures—stories of everyday authenticity lived out within the trenches. There are stories of heroism, stories of realism. Stories of hope and inspiration. Stories that have been shared with many and stories that have been shared with one. These stories might not …
“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox.” — Augustus Waters, in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars We are almost there. …
We don’t do fancy much, preferring the simple things instead. Hotdogs roasted over burning embers, sticky marshmallows, cold root beer. We don’t do extravagant either. We’d rather sit together under the stars and watch for meteor showers or take moonlight rides in old motor boats that go along great… until they blow a fuse. …
