Tales From the Trenches

When I look back on my life, one of the things I’m most grateful for are the people who saw me as I truly am, imperfections and all, and yet chose to believe in my best.  I think of the words of encouragement my mom wrote to me when I feared taking my first college biology …READ MORE

For several years now, our family has spent a week in October avoiding the Louisiana heat in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. We camp and roast marshmallows and go for hikes and soak up all the fall colors that we don’t get to see at home. Every year that we’ve done this, we’ve …READ MORE

It was when our family was young, and we had a rental house with a huge backyard, that I acquired the small outdoor statue of Mary that was my grandmother’s. I was so proud to put it right by a tree in the middle of the yard, just as I remembered it in my Grammy’s …READ MORE

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells And pretty maids all in a row. I am a reluctant gardener. I have never wanted a garden, nor have I planted a garden. And yet, I am mostly responsible for the care of a garden. Like Mary, I feel pretty …READ MORE

Silence. The kids are asleep and I’m sitting here in silence. There’s nothing to hear but my own thoughts.  Being a mother for almost seven years now, silence is a rare commodity, and one I’ve desperately been searching for. Oddly, it’s not the silence I crave, but the contemplation that inevitably comes in the calm …READ MORE

He threw the bowl down and stormed off to his room, but before he got through the doorway, he turned around, and with tears stinging his eyes, yelled, “You suck!” He crossed his arms and finished his rant into his room. I knew he didn’t mean it. Hot anger had made my son say nasty …READ MORE