Love Anyway

 I knew this day was coming. My heart has waited in anxious anticipation, knowing that it would hurt. Today was that day.  "I would protect her. I would be the best protector of her." he said.  And I knew he was right.  I had always known it. I said it years ago to a friend: My biggest fear is his compassionate heart. That when he knows he has a little sister and other siblings, he will so fiercely want to protect them. And that protection will cause him pain.  It started at the dinner table. My heart was already heavy from a hard day. Years of hard days that seem to keep cumulating into one more shuffled step forward. Our conversation turned to birth parents and adoption, which isn't something new. We have always had open conversation about adoption and family-siblings and grandparents that we don't get to see or have never met. The older kids know they have siblings, but tonight was the first time that the Man Cub realized he did too. And he became drawn to th...

   The sun shines red.  Not the red of a summer melt  or a fall radiance, but crimson and round and muted from the smoke.  The smoke that is everywhere.  Its ash covers the patio chair, and I shake it free from the green pillow as I sit.  I didn't even realize the sun was shining today until I looked up and saw the eerie glow. My morning walk was hazy and cold, a humid frigid that warns of winter coming and the sound of leaves crunching under foot.  This doesn't feel like a season of restoration.  It feels like a season of melting like wax that drips from the candle on the dining room table.  Perhaps it is the season of the Phoenix. A brazen burn before the ashes reform into wings.  But this is how restoration comes, isn't it? It is a breaking down before the building up.  Like the old coffee table I lovingly refinished years ago. I sanded and scraped down the top and the edges, smoothing out roughness and imperfections. But no...