Sometimes I stare in the mirror on Sunday mornings and wonder why I bother. Why put on the makeup, why wear the cute skirt? Because when we see each other Sunday morning, our children bouncing up to us, the makeup covering the tired bags under our eyes–that’s not real relationship. We exchange hellos and compliment…
Dear Ruth Ann, You are my eldest, my artist, the one who keeps me on task but forgets to stay on task. You have your daddy’s laid-back personality combined with the typical traits of an oldest, but oh you have your mother’s penchant for getting so lost in your art that you forget everything else….
“Was it hard, moving away from your family?” they ask. “Weren’t you homesick?” I always smile as I shake my head. I’d been homesick for him for so long that I couldn’t be homesick when we were finally making a home together. Yes, there were the adjustments of a new town, a new job, finding…
Dear Mary Kate, There’s no way to put into words the giggle in your voice, the lilt in the way you pronounce words. A photo can capture the sprinkling of tiny freckles across your button nose, but it would take a non-stop video camera to record everything that makes you Mary Kate. You are developing…
Whenever I am getting ready for company, I start seeing my house through another’s eyes. The bookshelves are stacked to the overflowing, and the desk looks just like the shelves — except it is papers and files that are cascading all over the desk. Dust bunnies lurk in the corners and can always be found…
Every spring we have fleeting thoughts of worry until we see them come in again. Selling organic vegetables brings us more than the usual run of clientele suffering from illnesses they are hoping to cure by eating well. And sometimes, we wonder whether we will see them again next year or not. But he had…
I am related to some of the most beautiful people in the world. I just can’t decide if they seem more beautiful when I’m missing them so far away, or if they are more beautiful when I get to see their faces again after a long absence. My beautiful paternal grandmother is in the hospital…
Each year, it’s a different creature. But this year, it’s earwigs. As never before. Perhaps it’s the mild winter that let them survive to bug us in such great quantity. I haven’t studied their life cycles enough to know. All I know is that I wish it was a shorter one. Granted, the year of…
They got married in a field of wild daisies on the first hot day in June. And from the moment that young bride walked down the grassy aisle on her daddy’s arm, she and her groom (not to mention everyone else) were wiping away tears. The groomsmen added a dash of humor as they came…
We are always in between birthdays at our house. The moment Christmas is past, Daniel’s birthday is looked for with great excitement by his big sisters. They talk about how he will let them help open presents, they talk about birthday hats, they anticipate April with the generosity of big sisters. The spring months bring…
We fell in love to the rhythm of Country music. The cassettes and CDs we mixed for each other became the soundtrack for those years. The songs we listened to reflecting the ups and downs, the excitement and the tears. “Don’t Take the Girl” was the first Country song he played me, the summer of…
Dear Ruth, You visit an imaginary world each night in your dreams. One where Aslan is both King and Friend, where Caspian is your knight in shining armor, and where there is everything you could wish. “In my Narnia there is a door into Radiator Springs,” you explain,” and a door into Betsy and Tacy’s…
The End.
The End.