The ward’s halls are paved with anxiety, painted with sighs and patched over with prayer. COVID and other nasty body snatchers hover. But she stands at the nursing station, pen in hand, checking charts. She’s young. Calm. Pretty. And pretty weary. Three more hours till she can leave. Her littles …
On the night before Christmas of 2019, I sat in a cozy corner by our slender lit tree. Minutes earlier I’d stood in the backyard, waiting for our shaggy sheepdog, Cash, to finish his business, and feeling particularly UNfestive. After the hype leading to the 25th, the harried schedule, decorating, …
At this writing, our globe has grappled with COVID-19 for almost a year. It has changed everything for too many people, and too many things for everyone. “I don’t want a new normal,” my friend said, referring to those pandemic changes. She stamped her foot a bit and fumed. “I—we …
COVID-19, with all its adjustments, terrors and sorrows will pass in time. Remember how difficult things were at the start of the pandemic panic, when everyone learned we must keep our distance from anyone not in our own household? Early in 2020, after the Preacher and I moved nearby them, …
“Crazy! Mercy! WOW!” Tears falling unchecked, the young husband sitting on the grass peered intently at the carrot in his hand, the fruit tray beside him, the sky overhead and the surrounding trees. He absorbed what he saw as though for the first time. His wife had just given him …
I wander into the kitchen, pour a half cup of popcorn kernels into the air popper, plug the thing in and wander out again. I’m distracted. I’m feeling sad. I’m hurting a bit. Just a bit, on my left forearm. Mostly, I’m wondering what I could have done differently in …
Dad, ninety five now and in a nursing home, receives some surprising company. “Dave comes to visit me,” he’s told me and my siblings often. “He sits beside the bed and reads me the Bible.” Dad’s twin brother Dave, my favourite uncle, died two years ago. That doesn’t bother my …
Sometimes I forget that our four oldest grandchildren never knew their grandfather when he was healthy. Never saw him leap high into the air and toss a ball into a hoop. Never descended into a cave with him, hiked a mountain trail together, or knew him as someone who often …
