Half Awake

I lay here in my dark bedroom listening to the sound of water, when metal shower curtain hooks scrap across a metal shower bar pulling me straight out of my dream state. Immediately, all I could say out loud in a whiny voice was, “Nooohoho!” It’s 3am…dementia is awake. It has no concept of time,…

Becoming Someone Else: a fading memory

I wish sometimes I had a little camera on my glasses so I can visually show my parents the situation when I explain it to them later than 4:30am.  I faintly hear my voice in the dark surrounding my dream state. In a panic, I open my sleepy eyelids and wait for sound to break…

Where Does She Go?

I sit with my grandmother often, a ready hand when she’s in need. I am a safe place when she is lonely, a conversation techie when questions arise, a chef satisfying her taste buds, a hugger in confusion, and an encourager of her independence. At 99-years old, she’s lived longest in this home, raised a…

A Deeper Kind of Relief

Your voice is faint, calling me from the bathroom. I can only imagine what you want or need from the privacy of the throne. I open the door and peek my head in to find you straining to push out a poop baby from your anus. My rescue brain goes quick into action bringing you…

Bite Your Tongue

Imagine driving home, singing along to the latest worship music with joy in your heart as you sing onto the Lord, and the heater blasting winter’s cold from your bones. For a little while, you forget where you’re going, until your road appears before you. At a moments notice, you remember the need to get…

Grinding

sounds of shrill laughter crackle my eardrums til I can no longer hear the clarity of conversation. I grimace my face my jaw aligns to grit my teeth. While waiting for small silences; reprieves, really, I debate with myself to stay and endure such monotonous pain growing in grace or move on.

Bells

dangle from the hem jingle, jangle jingle, jangle through clouds of dust and rose gardens jingle, jangle jingle, jangle nearer I can hear her coming closing the gap between jingle, jangle jingle, jangle little toes appear in my view she bends for a moment the light catching her curly auburn hair a blaze as she…

Exposed

She was lured too far to the edge, lunging out into light from the darkness she had been quarantined in. Step by step she closed the gap between destination and desire, thumping her cane along her side. Just beyond the curve, steps from the rail, slowly she sank into her chair. Instantly, she relaxed under…

Freedom

You rose in the morning, ready for battle, kissed the pictures of loved ones and tucked them away in your chest pocket, for safe keeping. From the trenches you devised plans, cried over fear, charged the field, brother by brother, your hands and feet stained with valor that even to this day, does not go…

A Horn Summons for Battle

Savoring ever morsel of Your Light, I exist delighting in watching patient fishermen turn into silhouettes and the lapping of waves race to shore. I am least distracted, yet can no longer bare the wind chapping my face. Sliding off the dune to the waters edge, I glance twice more at the pastels retracting into…

Dead Tree

You were once reaching, touching heaven and rooted, digging into earth. You were beauty to the human eye, dancing in the wind and enduring seasonal nature, until you could no longer. No matter how hard you hung on to life, death slowly took it from you, until there was none. Oh the things you’ve seen…

Room of Plenty

It is the smaller things in life, the practical ones, I’ve adhered to; ones so simple that others take for granted in this thirsty for more culture. Stretched upon my duvet cover to write this post, before the world pollutes my thinking, I sit here humbled by the blessings God has bestowed on me. Within…