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Wandering, Pondering Home

This month, I’m pondering the meaning of home. It all started with a young man I met on my way to the farmers’ market a few weeks ago. On a blazing hot day, he stood shirtless on a street corner. A red-haired boy with a sunburn holding a sign. Where is that boy’s sunscreen? Where’s his mom? Where’s his home? I had to stop. “Can I take a picture of your sign?” I asked as I approached him. “Sure,” he said with a grin and held the sign up in front of him. After snapping his picture, I asked his […]

By Paula July 11, 2015

If Cabins Could Talk

I learned to walk on your front porch. Kissed a boy there too. Plucked slivers from my feet and painted my toenails with my cousins on your sunny deck. Tried to tan there too, and have hidden under an umbrella’s shade since surviving melanoma. I’ve done dishes with Grandma and Mom and now my daughters overlooking your cold blue lake. Your coffee pots are 50 years old and so are you. I think these dish pans belonged to Grandma Helen. They’re battered and worn, have bathed babies, and watered horses. My hands have soaked in them a thousand times over […]

By Paula June 22, 2015

Fruit Ninjas and Fainting Goats

I went to bed last night and woke this morning with the same thought: in spite of loss, our life is overflowing. Out of the shadows of the trees, the shadows of this grief, abundance overwhelms us. I find this in our orchard. In our harvest. There’s so much fruit, but not all of it is good. Bird pecks, bruises, imperfections mar much of the bounty. “Such a shame to throw it away,” we’ve said the past few years. “We need to figure out what to do with the bad stuff instead of just wasting it.” So we began cutting… […]

By Paula June 16, 2015

When Plan B is really Plan A

When Plan A fails, Plan B has to work. It’s got to work. Old people die. Young people aren’t supposed to die. Can a child’s dying really teach us how to live? It has to teach us something. Before the accident our family was too busy, too broke, and just working too darn hard to go to the beach. After Anna’s funeral we found the time. And found the money. A sandcastle house helped. Thank you dear friends for blessings us in Fort Bragg. We so needed to make these memories for our boys right now. This was our first trip […]

By Paula June 9, 2015

Something Beautiful

When I stop at the crash site, I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just know I have to stop. Plant my feet there. Stand in the grief there. Speak to God there. Golden grass waves in the wind. Tire tracks: ambulances, firetrucks, tow trucks, I imagine them all. Imagine Anna leaving us. There. I can’t spend the rest of my life driving by “there.” I know days will come on this highway–not every day– but more days than I’m prepared for, I will drive by “there” and weep for our family’s great loss. Even though I know Anna […]

By Paula June 1, 2015

When Love Lights the Way

“How will we get through this dark valley?” I asked God several days after Anna died. Our family was reeling with grief. Anna’s dad was in the hospital. Each day I drove past the scene of the accident– tall golden grass waving in the wind near an overpass– on my way down to the trauma center in Roseville. Love will light the way, the Lord seemed to say. Each person is like a lamp. Burning with love. Illuminating your path. I never knew how dark the valley of the shadow of death could be. I’ve lost grandparents, aunts and beloved uncles, a […]

By Paula May 25, 2015

So God Made A Mother

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caregiver.” So God made a mother. God said, “I need someone willing to get up in the middle of the night to comfort a crying child, warm bottles, change diapers, and kiss sweaty foreheads,” so God made a mother. “I need someone with arms strong enough to carry two bags of groceries from the car, but gentle enough to wipe tears off a little one’s cheeks. Somebody to help with homework, wash dishes, do laundry, scrub sinks and toilets, and still dress up […]

By Paula May 8, 2015