Papa Jay married Mema in the preacher’s living room. He was on leave, and they had decided to go ahead with it, so Mema ran out to buy a dress and some flowers. Papa wore his uniform. Aunt Margarete baked a pecan pie to serve afterward, and Papa still talks about how good it was. … Continue reading A Wartime Love
"There's just something about the way he sings. It makes me think of when it snows outside, and the fire is warm, and Podo is telling us a story while you're cooking, and there's no place I'd rather be--- but for some reason I still feel... homesick." ~ Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the … Continue reading Stacked Wood & Hearthfires
Lila Joy was born at home a week ago, all healthy and ruddy and dark-headed. I went for a visit Tuesday afternoon, and she was curled near my sister in a patch of sunlight on the bed, not so swollen as she'd been fresh out of the womb. It had been dark then, and the … Continue reading Looking for Some Light
It happens every eight seconds, they say, but it’s no less weird and wonderful. I’ve never seen a baby be born, but my big sister has— twelve of them, actually. She earned her birth assistant’s certificate because she’d grown up the oldest sister, the babysitter, the Meg March of the family. As a kid, she … Continue reading Winter In Her Womb
A Story of Christmas Past My grandma Karen watched Hallmark Christmas movies the way some people use an Advent wall calendar. She counted down to Christmas that way, settling into the couch every evening for the newest feature with the same cookie-cutter plotline as the night before; and she wanted us to relish them too. … Continue reading All Shall Be Well
My Aunt Andi flew down from Alaska last weekend for a visit, and she told us how the snow outside her window in Wasilla is already inching down the mountains. The closer it falls to tree line, the sooner the long winter will settle in, when sun will set at three in the afternoon. They’ve … Continue reading Ember
I came down the drive tonight just before the rainstorm and the lamp was on and the fan moving thick air through the front room and you weren't home. You'd taken the train to the sea then a steamship across and were walking Berlin in 1943 and the bikes were ringing under the bombers (and … Continue reading Girl on the Train
Sometimes, I'll forget whether it’s Dad’s Sunday to preach or not, but as soon as I feel my way down the hallway toward the coffee pot, I know. If he isn’t reading in the armchair by the window, then his black dress shoes wait on the floor next to it. I like to see him … Continue reading The Minister, As I Know Him
Probably the most impassioned thing I ever wrote was an essay called Two-And-A-Half Acres on Edgewood Road. I was eighteen, and for the first time, I’d tried writing about the place I knew best and the people I’d shared it with. I wrote from a hotel room at night, rain blearing the windows and brake … Continue reading The Climbing Tree
Hey, Mom. Thanks for being here, and for reading these things I write every Sunday. But really, thanks for all the times when you aren't here in front of this screen because you're too busy working in the real spaces around you, planning our meals and wiping down the highchairs after the kids have gone (and also … Continue reading Hey, Mom
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