The Best of Intentions
Hands on the steering wheel, my mind half mulling over the day’s work and half paying attention the podcast playing in the background, I kept my eyes on the road. Suddenly, I became fully present as the host asked, “Generally, do you think people are doing their best?” With...
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A Writing Journey
As an English teacher one of my very favorite concepts to teach was that of connotation and denotation. It is, after all, the magic behind words. As a student myself, learning about connotation and denotation was the key that unlocked the power of words for me. I longed to...
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Fingers and Toes
Small bare feet with fat Fred Flintstone toes stepped both carefully, yet clumsily on the wooden deck stairs. Chubby fingers gripped the railing. This is what caught my eye. The movements both clunky and care free at the same time. They were set on some bigger plan, one in...
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A Cabinet Full of Water Bottles
The click, clack of my keyboard was interrupted by a nine-hundred pound elephant stomping around upstairs. I’d been lost in the moment, my fingers moving swiftly over the keys as ideas took shape on the page. The elephant, also known as my son, stomped back and forth between his...
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Hot Air Balloons
I drove into work. Off in the distance, there painted in the sky was a memory. Maybe not painted so much as dotted. There were specks of bright colored silk scattered in the distance contrasted by the dark silhouette of the foothills behind them. On early summer mornings it’s...
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“Double R”
For the first few months after Rylie died, I’d often tell people that I was playing pretend. It was easy to pretend she was away at camp. It was easy to pretend she was spending the night with friends. I could make up all sorts of stories. As time...
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The Necklace
Rylie's gift to me Mother's Day 2016. ...
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Trampolines
Twice on my walk recently, I was stopped dead in my tracks. Both times by trampolines. Okay that’s weird, I get it, but it happened. Twice in the same twenty minute walk. The first time there was a little glimmer in the corner of my eye. A quick flash...
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Puking on Paper
I used to get up everyday and stand in front of a classroom of anywhere from 26 to 60 students at a time. There were days when I was in front, leading the charge. There were days when I was alongside, just close enough to provide a sense of...
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Cancelling
Since we ended up staying local for the holidays, I made my best effort to plan little activities each day that would keep the three of us engaged and give us a sense of some fun. In all honesty, some of it worked, but much of it I had...
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