It is Monday. (Last Monday, as the case may be. But even so, here is a Monday reflection.)

I miss my girl and I don’t want to spend money on a new computer. I think I need a new computer, though, because my blue friend here, my Hewlett Packard Stream, purchased from Walmart several years ago, doesn’t have enough memory to store anything or update anything anymore, even these small Word documents. It’s taken to randomly shutting down. I feel like I’m back in college again, saving all my documents every few minutes or so, back in the days before automatic saving, where at the exact wrong moment, the blue screen of death would appear, and the last 500 words of your carefully crafted paper would disappear into the ether. (Stops to save. Again) But I love this computer. I love that it is blue! Sadly, that might not be enough anymore.

I made tater tots for dinner last night, but also salad, so there is the dark and the light, the yin and yang.

It snowed earlier this morning, the last day of September, and they had chain controls down to Baxter. There were record lows around the region. This surely will set off a bevy of anti-global warming jeers. “Global warming,” some will shout, “And look at the record lows!” My U.S representative will probably lead the cries. He remarked at a town hall meeting once that “yes, I believe in climate change, because the weather changes everyday!”

Ugh. Continue Reading…

They say that trees in autumn show us the beauty of letting go. I think that’s lovely, in theory. I’m less convinced when it’s my turn.

Things are the same. Until they’re not.

Every September for the last 13 years, I’ve known what to expect.  It’s been a blessing, really. Get out of bed, go to the bathroom, go to the kitchen, make a cup of tea (iced in summer, hot in winter).  Wake up my children and fix them breakfast.  Cereal for my son. A bagel with cheese for my daughter.  Fruit for both. Jockey with my daughter for time in our one bathroom (“May I come in now? Please?”)

The routine has shifted some over the years, depending on where we are living and where my children’s schools are. These past years, my husband has been able to drop my son off at school on his way to work. They usually left first. My daughter and I would follow later, because she needed the maximum amount of time available to get ready. There was a short season after she got her drivers license, before the car died, that she drove herself to school. Most of the time, though, I dropped her off. I didn’t mind. Time with her in the car, listening to music or just talking before her day started? It was a gift.

Day after day after day after day after day this is what happened.  This routine is what I expected, what I sometimes dreaded, what I mostly treasured.  It’s what I knew. It was ordinary, and it was holy.

Until it changed.

Suddenly I am waking up without my daughter. Continue Reading…