The leaves of the maples on the corner have fallen down around their waists. Now they wear only golden skirts poked through with branches. Just a week ago the trees evoked glory, their brilliant cadmium yellow and orange foliage gleaming in sunlight. No one knew how long the peak of autumn color would last. Just a week ago he was still with us. An autumn tree not yet stripped, a season lengthening. No one knew how short this autumn would be, how quickly winter could descend. After today’s rain, we’ll see how many leaves remain on those maples. Tomorrow or the next day or perhaps the day after, just...

My mother and me, perhaps in 2008 It is hard to describe the memories I’ve had of my mother these last 11 years without her. Yes, there are the anecdotal memories, like the time she prayed with me to give my life to Jesus Christ and the Bible verse she read to assure me that I belonged to Him. And the time she carried me from the creek up the incline of our back yard toward the house when something exploded into my knee while we were burning trash. I can almost see her tears as the family car drove away, leaving me in Chicago for my first year of college. Usually, what comes to mind is a mish-mash of...

February 16, 2020 marks a decade without Mom. For her this past decade should have been a golden one, enjoying her grandsons as they grew and became teenagers, buying dolls and paint sets for her granddaughter, celebrating with two of her daughters as they got married (one of them me), spending more time traveling with my dad, helping her own elderly mother…and thinking about how she wanted to celebrate her 70th birthday next year. Mom with her mom and granddaughter 10 years ago How much Mom has missed these last 10 years. How much I have missed her and longed for her! But from her...

It’s been more than a decade since my mother gave me a crystal creamer and sugar bowl set. It’s been so long now that I don’t remember the date. But I do remember how excited I was to receive it, as well as the general timeframe when I broke the creamer—around four years after she died. I was so disappointed. It had been elegant and beautiful, and still a fresh reminder of my mother’s love for me. Now half the set was missing. It was another incident that exemplified the growing distance between my current life and my life when my mother was alive. I’ve always been on the sentimental side, but after...

  Soon after my mother died (eight years ago today), I met with a friend who had lost her father some years earlier. She told me that at that point, she was able to think about that awful day without feeling the horror of it.   I now know what she means. Death of a loved one is horrible. Its suddenness, its consumption, its finality all leave the bereaved almost stupefied with disbelief, broken with the loss.   But by God’s grace, I don’t feel the horror of my mother’s death anymore. I still experience a lot of grieving moments, and I miss her more than words can say. But I’m able to...