This is all of it. This is raising kids and healing a marriage and finding faith and seeking justice. The work is never done so the rewards must be collected as we go.
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Lipstick Legacy
I have it now; this little blue mug that says “MOM” on it all uneven like it was mass printed and sold for last minute gift-buyers on Mother’s Day sometime in the 80s. Maybe my Dad got it for her from me, their new baby, between sleep deprived shifts at one of his several jobs and maybe it made her cry the way you do when you’ve earned something that has not been easy. Mornings were quiet in our little cabin. Dad needed to sleep after his swing shift and Mom readied herself in the early, dark hours to join the other commuters on 101 by sunrise. Sometimes she would…
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My Little Man
I’m a new mother. Again. Because every new child makes me over – I am four babies redone now and it gets no less remarkable every time. Today as I changed one of probably 300 diapers in the past two months, I began to see my little son as who he might become. “Will you be an artist?” I asked him, “A doctor? A construction worker?” I laughed at the thought of a big hard helmet on his soft little head. But soon my thoughts landed on what I really hope for, what I will actually care about when he’s an adult. “Will you be kind? Will you love well? Will…
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There was a school shooting…
There was a school shooting near my home today. Not many details have been released, but there was a school shooting near my home today. Parents – friends – received automated voice messages from the school district informing them that their children were on lockdown. News footage covered the school like it’s covered so many – too many – before. There are cliches around this now; how did that happen? A friend of mine texted me a link to a news article while I was plunked down at the YMCA getting some work done, my babies safely playing mere feet away from me in the child watch, oblivious to the absolute…
