We went to the site together, you and I— I drove you there to inspect the stone, newly placed. The summer sun was bright, your grassy spot speckled with shade. You stood six feet back, shoes planted near their final resting place. Six feet of summer green and creeping shadows. We went to…
It’s Father’s Day week. In honor and memory of my dad, I’ve been drinking out of one of his mugs. I think I gave it to him for Christmas 2004—at the end of one of the most difficult years of my life. By Christmastime I was halfway through my first year as a graduate student…
This has been a Holy Week to remember—or, some might say, to forget. With COVID-19 flying around the globe, most of us have “been sent home until further notice,” and the most holy week on the church calendar has been forced into cyber space. I began the week Facebook chatting with my church family before…
It won't be long now. We’re about to lose our dad for the second time. We lost him the first time on June 1, 2005. That morning as he prayed with my mom—as he did every morning before the day got going—he suffered a massive stroke that robbed him of a great deal of cognitive…
As I stared into the porcelain bowl of a hotel bathroom on Sunday night, I wanted two things. First, to stop puking, and second, to go home—in that order. A stomach bug when you’re an airplane trip away from home is magnified misery. Think TSA, crowds, and carry-on luggage. Think airplane bathroom. Think seat-in-its-upright-position. On…
It was Christmas Eve, and we were spending the morning with my dad, who passes most of the day in his recliner—napping or staring out the window. I looked around for things I thought might interest him, a challenging exercise since he seldom tells you. Questions are usually answered with a stare or a shrug—neither…
It’s a mild January afternoon in Minnesota, but no one here is fooled. Daffodils and daisies, some of the earliest and cheeriest signs of spring, are months away. Plenty of subzero temperatures, sheets of ice, and piles of snow lay between here and that most wonderful time of year when winter gray gives way to…
A troupe of builders was in and out of our house for much of this past fall. In the theater of our basement, they performed for a seven-week run—hammers, saws, and drills banging, humming, and buzzing in dissonant harmony, while a variety of radio stations blared out the melody of each day’s score. When they…
Several years ago I took my parents on an expedition, at their request, to the cemetery where they will someday be buried. We stopped at the main building, found a map indicating the location of their plots, and drove to the site. I parked the car, and as they made their way across the grass,…
Tomorrow my friend Sarah will bury her husband, the first of my peer group to do so. And while she and I haven’t had much contact in the half-decade since I moved to a different state, Sarah will always be a special friend. When the devastating news of her loss reached me on Wednesday morning,…
