Exactly six months ago I was sitting in the kitchen when Robert came inside to inform me that he thought Jane had broken her leg. She wasn’t crying, but she looked mad and inconvenienced. The next day we took her to Robert’s clinic where an Xray confirmed that she had, in fact, fractured her leg […]

Many years ago, before having children, I picked up a new hobby in the form of sewing. It was slow going at first and I still don’t claim any expertise. With the arrival of children, my sewing has focused predominantly on bibs, burb cloths and children’s clothes. I don’t sew as much as I once […]

Two years ago, on my 30th birthday, I told Robert that I wanted to write a book before I turned 40. He smiled, skeptical and encouragingly, and asked what kind of book I planned to write. I didn’t have a solid answer. I thought a cookbook would be fun, maybe even a Bible study or […]

I have been convicted of many things since the loss of my daughter. My priorities, namely, became a glaring problem. My own comfort, happiness and selfishness are too high on the list of importance. I have been silent on many things in my life because it was uncomfortable, because I didn’t want to hurt feelings […]

It’s been a hard few days. Grief ebbs and flows, life itself shifts and moves in unpredictable ways. Sometimes I can pinpoint exactly what has made a day difficult and why we have experienced more grief. Like yesterday when Robert text me and said, “I just saw a patient that I hadn’t seen since February […]

Robert and I lost a daughter in February, but my kids also lost a sister and best friend. Grief is complicated and messy. It grows more complex by the sheer number of people grieving within our home. Parenting children that are grieving is a delicate and fluctuating experience. All of our children are beautifully unique […]

Finality is sure and right now it feels heavy. While we are obviously living a life we could not have anticipated just three and a half months ago, there have still been so many more surprises and pain lurking in unexpected places. The early days after Jane’s death were thick with the fog of heartache […]

A couple of days ago I opened my calendar to write down some upcoming appointments. I haven’t used or even looked at my calendar in months, there has been nothing coming up and nothing to remember. Robert asked how many weeks pregnant I was and I replied that I thought I was 32 weeks or […]

We took our vows seriously on our wedding day, and we have every day since. Our vows were long. I remember looking through the proposed vow options in the packet given to us by our church. I couldn’t decide, Robert liked them all and so we combined them. There was something of the traditional, for […]

This week Robert and I celebrate ten years of marriage. There will be no expensive international trip and we will be fortunate if we get to eat at a restaurant for dinner. This milestone looks different than I probably imagined it would look just a few years ago, but it is actually much sweeter than […]