By Kathyrn Lynard
The other day my eight-year-old son, Matt, approached me in the kitchen. “Mom, I just realized something that’s freaking me out,” he said with a slightly furrowed brow. I was intrigued. “Oh yeah? What did you just realize?” His eyes widened. “I’m alive!” he announced. “I mean, I’m living. It’s so freaky!” I smiled, remembering …
By Allyson Smith
THE BOYS AND I brought our first harvest home from the farm in June—a whole sack of beet greens. The bag sat on the table most of the afternoon and well into the evening when dinner should already have been prepared because, frankly, not only were these the first beet greens of the year, they …
By Cheri Schulzke
ARMED WITH THE BROOM and dustpan, I head for the stairs. Hurry. Girls’ Squad is almost over. I know they’ll all stay longer than they should if they don’t think the job is done. This is our third year doing Girls’ Squad. An ambitious, creative friend found the idea in the Ensign and recruited four of us. We take …
By Emily Milner
Mother’s Day is in eight days–can I recommend a gift gift subscription for your mom/wife/friend? Our Spring issue, Roots and Branches, is at the presses now, and it’s wonderful. I am so excited about it. I was trying to be all professional about this announcement, something like “From the stunning cover by Cassandra Barney, to the …
By Emily Milner
ON A DAY OF SMELLY LAUNDRY MOUNTAINS, a day when I felt mother-grumpy, my grandma’s letter arrived. She had typed it out and sent copies to all her young-mother granddaughters. I opened it hoping, in a weepy emotional way, for a tender mercy, something to ease my fatigue. The letter did not disappoint. My grandma wrote, …
By Allyson Smith
GOD’S COUNTRY. That’s what my husband’s grandmother calls this land of rolling fields and sprawling cities. She grew up forty-five minutes from the University of Notre Dame, and when she heard Bryan had decided to come here for his PhD, she was thrilled. “You’ll absolutely love it there,” she told us. “That’s God’s country.” When it …
By Kathyrn Lynard
I LICK THE ENVELOPE and press it shut, affix the stamp, and place it in the mailbox with a sigh of satisfaction. This is my fourth letter to Amy. I’ve been writing to her every week since she checked herself in to a substance-abuse rehabilitation program. Amy, my neighbor’s live-in niece, first came to church …
By Kathyrn Lynard
The atmosphere in the newborn intensive care unit was hushed, the light dim. My son Sam, one week old, lay naked on a padded warming bed, covered with a mess of tubes and wires. IV lines in his hands and feet, monitor leads on his chest, a ventilator tube down his throat—all connecting him to …
By Justine Dorton
MY SPOT IN THE HOUSE: standing at the kitchen counter. It’s where I’ve worn out the ground more than anywhere else in the house. It’s where my children will remember me standing as they retell their childhood tales to their children. This spot in the house helps define me, whether I’m making food, signing …