Tuesday

Please pray for Jude, I write, crying in my pajamas. Don has carried him kicking and wailing out to the bus. I am emailing everyone I know, please pray, I don't know why he is screaming, he has been screaming for days, we don't know what is wrong, he must be working something out but I can't help him, oh please, pray.

My friend writes me back. He is working something out, Rebecca. He has to sort things out.
Maybe he is thinking about God.

I put my head on my keyboard and sob.


It is healing to count ladybugs and chase squirrels. Eden's hair is like fire as he runs in the sunlight, and I turn my face up to the sky and feel thankful that I get one more chance to send someone out into the world who knows someone loves him best of all. Maybe in heaven we will all be running and chasing squirrels and sitting down to read stories about friendly turtles and kindly owls. Life is so sweet when it is simple and everything makes sense.


I am walking to the store in the rain, it smells good, and I don't mind getting wet. I pass a lady with a baby in the stroller and she looks so content. I think she is happy because she believes that her child will never cry and not be comforted. Maybe he won't.


I can't believe you are nine, I tell Sage as he makes that loud slurpy sound with his drink, clearly annoying the lady behind us at Starbucks. I give her my sweetest smile.

I take his hand and hold it. Today he does not mind, but once or twice he had pulled away, independence surfacing and going back down, giving me time to prepare.

I have to get kisses and snuggles now, I whisper. I have to get my fill so I can deal when you are too cool.

Myabe, he says, leaning in closer, I can be your secret Mama's boy. No one will know.

that would be great.. I say, my eyes stinging.

My husband wants to hold me when everyone is in bed but I have nothing left, nothing to give, all I want to do is curl up with my book, but it is not just my pain today and I can't shut him out,
I can feel him breathing on my neck and he tells me I am a good mother, and I shake my head no, and he squeezed tighter and we fall asleep that way. I wake up shivering later, the window is open and he has rolled over to sleep on his own side. I get up to shut the window and look out into the windy street and I can feel God, I think, and see Him, moving the trees, and I wish I had more faith, and could I have some grace, please, just a little more because I need it to be okay.
God, please, let it be okay.

Ecstatic Gift of Love

The Word became flesh to communicate to us human beings caught in the mud, the pain, the fears and the brokenness of existence, the life, the joy, the communion, the ecstatic gift of love that is the source of all love and life and unity in our universe and that is the very life of God.
-Jean Vanier