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A Dog’s Life
Scott picked up the leash and we walked out the door with Boomer like we had so many times before. Only this time we weren’t heading out to explore the city or to let Boomer stretch his legs. This time we were going to say goodbye. To him. Cancer. We’ve heard that diagnosis before – when medical tests found the cause of our 13-year-old son’s massive headache. This time the diagnosis was for our dog. We named him Boomer, a nod to Oklahoma, the place we raised our kids. The kids had begged and lobbied for another dog after Sundance. We told them to write a proposal detailing how this…
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Vulnerability and Victory in 7 million steps
The alarm went off at 5:15am. I wanted to hit the snooze button and snuggle deeper under the covers. But I didn’t. My husband was stirring, plus our friends would be in our driveway in 15 minutes. Every Friday (rain or shine, snow or ice) for more than 2 years my husband and I threw on tennis shoes and sweatshirts and met Tylee and Larence Searle for a 5-mile walk. In the stillness of all those mornings before the sun rose, we walked over 7 million steps or 28 million if you combine the 4 of us. It started as a way to exercise and quickly morphed into sacred time.…
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Preface
I read some of Jen Hatmaker’s words last summer. “Sometimes you can connect a few dots and discover a pretty clear path toward vibrancy and possibility.” I thought about the dots that connect for me. My shelves are full of books I read as a child. I keep a list of books I’ve read beginning in high school. Once near the end of a book — Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety — I had a sense of deja vu. I checked my list and saw I had read the book 14 years earlier. As a young mom, I’d slip into a book during stolen moments, promising myself I’d go to…
