A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

- Maya Angelou

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A family tradition

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In the spring of 2000, everyone was wiping their brows after the Y2K scare, the last new Peanuts cartoon was published, and the first season of Survivor kicked off on CBS. Bryan and I were finishing up our freshman year at Sprague High School and our church youth group was preparing to go on a mission trip to Mexico that summer. While Bryan and I were far from being a couple at the time, we both decided to go on this trip. We went mainly because our friends were going and it sounded exciting to travel outside of the country without our parents. A trip that started as a “fun thing to do,” ended up shaping us in much bigger ways.  For the first time, I experienced poverty.  I was astounded at the houses made of plastic and plywood, bursting with smiling children. It was a wonder to me how they could be so happy yet have so little.  Bryan worked to clean up a church which was an old storefront where they set up old folding chairs to worship God together.  I l...
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Hope

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I had a baby girl last Tuesday. There was no pushing. No pain. No first cry. I had baby girl last Tuesday, 174 days too early. For nearly 15 weeks, she was ours. We wondered if she was a boy or a girl. I dreamt up new names. I gained 5 pounds for her. I resisted extra caffeine, snuck in naps, and even made Mother’s Day coffee mugs bearing a picture of her 10-week-old ultrasound silhouette as gifts for her grandmas. My mom hollered when she saw the picture, which foretold that her 3 rd grandchild was due the day before Thanksgiving. Then, just a week later, I wept listening to my sweet mother sing to my sweet, breathless 1.5 ounce girl “your little tiny hands, and your little tiny feet…” How does this happen? How does a baby somersaulting in an ultrasound at 10 weeks now lie there perfectly formed, but without a heartbeat just a month later? -------------------------- “Let’s listen to baby,” nurse Glenda told me after taking my blood ...
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Opening the gift

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I know this post is late, but that’s how it is. I don’t write things just to write them. I don’t like to be rushed. I don’t like expectations. So, this morning, two days after my daughter’s birthday, I am finally sitting down (in my bathrobe of course) with my lukewarm coffee and a sleeping baby upstairs, to write. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing more to say. But then, there is. Because Hallelujah’s story is just beginning. This has been quite the week. Fifth & Jackson is the last place we set eyes on our baby’s sweet face and that is the place Bryan walked into this past Friday to perform a funeral. Just before stepping into that service, he found out that a pregnant couple from church had gone to their prenatal appointment and found that their baby girl had no heartbeat. The sorrow is just so real and close and breathtaking all over again. This past year has taught me a few things: 1. As much as Tucker has been a healing weight to our empty arms, he doesn’t fix the ...
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