Pain can feel like protection. If I hold it tight, no one can tell me to move on. No one can rush me. No one can take what's left. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has held pain this way. Close to the chest. Quiet. Guarded. Some days it feels like the last piece...
An Ordinary Morning in Texas It was June 2021. We had moved from Seattle to Tennessee in the middle of the pandemic. After months of screens and isolation, I was finally going somewhere. I was going to see people. In person! The National Religious Broadcasters...
The dress hung where she could see it every day. For months. My sister Jolene was getting married, and Annie, who was four years old, was going to be her flower girl. She had a very important job. Get the path ready for Aunt Jolene. We talked about what a very special...
I flipped the calendar a couple of days early… August is a month I would rather just keep flipping past. The page in July is already the heaviest one I turn all year. And I didn't want to see August, the month we lost Annie. Never has time moved so slowly. And yet,...
Sunflower Cottage About a month after Annie passed, our neighbors let us know they were going to sell their home. We were not in a position to even think about buying a house. But this one shares two sides of our backyard. So we said yes, without really knowing what...
The Last First Day I won’t forget that September morning in 2021. A text came in from my youngest son. I opened it to see him standing in front of his college apartment, holding a sign: Last First Day of School. My last child.His last first day. And there it was—that...
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