the sled is blue and my son sits small and husband pulls him away from the house down the road winding white towards church
i’m inside in red pajamas with a couch-rest order and another, from my husband, to read the stories
i don’t want to read the stories. the chicken soup ones. the ones i bought him for christmas because i know he likes them. he sits in the bathroom reading one after the other, about parenting and children and i knew he would ask me to read them one day. they’re good, i say. i just don’t have time, but as the sled pulls blue away and the house sighs quiet and i think of all i want to do: painting, guitar, shower,
i remember his arms around me the day i returned. the day aiden and i flew west, one week after trent had come home, wedding-following… the day he picked us up and took us home. “thank you for choosing to come back to me,” he whispered, and
i couldn’t breathe for the freedom.
i remember the love in the choice and i pad in wool-stitched feet to read the stories, the four in particular he’d told me i had to read, (please) and i cry my way through, and they take but four minutes of my day but they make me see life new
and i sit in the bathroom wiping eye thinking, he always knows. even when he chooses from a buffet or a menu, he always chooses best. somehow he knows.
thank you for choosing to come back to me, he says
but all i can think is, thank you for wanting me to.
joining this with ann, thanking God for:
200. you, blog-readers, and out-pouring of prayer ((thank you… from humble heart))
201. rested body, halted bleeding
202. ultrasound on tuesday
203. mother-in-law caring for me
204. friends dropping off tulips and meals
205. kind phone calls
206. neighbors bringing by ollie bollen (new year’s dutch tradition–fried bread)
207. spring thaw
208. library books
209. good movies (inception)
210. a renewed desire to create