“Thwack!!”
My heart skipped a beat at the unexpected sound. Had something hit the window? A bird, maybe? No, not a bird. A mirror. The driver’s side mirror to be exact. It had popped loose from its frame and had swung by its wire up to the window, giving it a loud smack. Thump. Thump. Thump. It bounced off the door as I rattled down the washboard road. I could hear my oldest daughter’s voice, although she wasn’t in the truck with me yet. “Mom, someone needs to fix this road!” They sure did. But it still served its purpose. Busted, not broken. Unlike the mirror, which hung like a eyeball from a socket, unable to see. But it wasn’t the bumpy road that caused the mirror to come loose. It was a …
My dad can’t be here to enjoy this snow. But we can. So we did.
After today, I can add “have a good cry over a piece of bacon” to my life experiences. I’ve been holding in my emotions for the past few days, willing myself to NOT make eye contact with the ghost of Christmas past. The smiling, always up to mischief face of my father, who took great delight in this time of year.
As I sat at the breakfast table with my husband, listening to the sound of some red dirt band and children’s feet running around upstairs, the dam broke. I bit into the perfectly-cooked piece of bacon, commented to my husband how it was the best from the batch yet, let the glare from the fresh fallen snow fall into my …
They flew so low, it was almost as if they were inviting us to reach up and touch their soft, feathery underbellies. (image from: mackerrow.zenfolio.com)
Three weeks ago today, I was sitting comfortably in my bed, deeply engrossed in a James Lee Burke novel. A bit unusual since I’d lost my normally voracious appetite for reading. My father had loaned me the book, one that I was initially eager to enjoy as we’d read nearly every one of his novels together. But for some reason, I kept picking at the book a few pages at a time, never completely diving in. Until that night. One particular passage touched me in a profound way, and I dog-eared the page to show my dad. That’s what we did, he and I. Our own little book club. But I …
Two sisters dancing. One momma smiling.
Brown Eyed Girl pulsed from the band shell while my two little blue and green eyed girls spun around the dance floor with their daddy. As darkness descended on my hometown, swirling, patterned lights bounced off the towering trees above the concrete slab in front of the stage. I sat on a bench, just 10 feet from the action, mesmerized and peaceful just taking it all in. I relaxed my shoulders, and set the half-eaten plate of funnel cake down beside me. I smiled, as a tear threatened to find its way to my eye. I felt the beat throb and bounce and jump, letting it pass through my body, the rhythm settling in my belly, that full yet empty space where our lost …
Father and daughter discuss the delights of The Sizzler. She wanted to ride SO badly, but will have to wait until next year.
He put the van in reverse, and I watched my little family begin to back out of the driveway. My girls waved vigorously from their car seats, giddy with joy that daddy was taking them to the carnival. I stepped out onto the porch, and motioned for my husband to stop. He rolled down the window.
“I’m coming. Just give me a minute.”
That moment, that split decision, was probably one of the best I’ve ever made. Fresh from hearing our sweet baby had died in utero, my heart was swollen and achy, much like my abdomen where our child still rests. I didn’t want to go. To face …
“You’re going to what?!” I believe this was my initial reaction (internally) several years ago when my sister said she wanted to adopt. And not an infant, a middle-school age boy, a couple of years younger than her youngest. It was something God was calling her to do, though, and I couldn’t argue with that. But I kind of thought she was crazy. I mean, most mothers are bittersweet about their last one leaving the nest, but don’t necessarily start backfilling.
My sister and her husband (and some other legal-type guy) with their new son.
My sister is sixteen years my senior, and although age kept us at a distance growing up, she’s now my best friend. One, two, three, four, my nephews entered the world, starting when I was five years old. They seem more …