A Letter to My Father
Tomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of my father’s passing. I remember dreaming that Daddy died several years before he actually did. The dream came long before the cancer diagnosis, before…
Motherhood
Then Comes Baby in a Baby Carriage
Peter DeVries once said, “The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.” I think both processes are important, but have nonetheless found his…
A Hero in the Making: Like Father, Like Son
When my husband and I first married, we had more time than money, so much of our gift-giving consisted of poems and short stories we wrote for one another. I…
What Spiders Know that Moms Forget
Moms are amazing. They birth babies. They make milk. They keep their household humming. But spiders are pretty savvy, too. They spin silk. They weave webs. They provide for public…
25 Ways to Prepare Your Child for Success
The fourth of our twelve children will be leaving the nest in another couple of months, and it has my husband and me reexamining the job we have done (thus…
My “Do It Now” List
As important as it is to remember that life doesn’t end when our last child leaves home, it is equally imperative for us to realize the time for their departure…