No Cheap Christmas Gifts!

Cadence, Filled with Joy. Christmas Day, 2009. We’re all Bazillionaires I was startled, some weeks ago, to find this subject line on a message board for Christian writers: “CHEAP CHRISTMAS GIFTS!!!” Surely the person who posted this meant cheap in the sense of  “purchasable below the going price or the real value,” but the phrase […]


Birthday Presence

Sawyer, Big Brother Cadence, Mommy Elaine. Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego. November 11, 2010 The Next Best Thing to Being There During a Skype session with my daughter Elaine and her family, I asked Cadence, who had just turned five, if he had fun on his birthday. “I did,” he said. “But Lala! Why weren’t […]


Birthday Presence

Sawyer, Big Brother Cadence, Mommy Elaine. Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego. November 11, 2010 The Next Best Thing to Being There During a Skype session with my daughter Elaine and her family, I asked Cadence, who had just turned five, if he had fun on his birthday. “I did,” he said. “But Lala! Why weren’t […]


Birthday Presence

Sawyer, Big Brother Cadence, Mommy Elaine. Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego. November 11, 2010 The Next Best Thing to Being There During a Skype session with my daughter Elaine and her family, I asked Cadence, who had just turned five, if he had fun on his birthday. “I did,” he said. “But Lala! Why weren’t […]


Wedding Gifts, Part Two: Just the Thing

Art by Ali O’Brien Schaffner, Chocolate Moose Design.  Not My Day Being the stepmother of the bride is a precarious position. Rebecca was 24 when I married her father, so I’d had no role in her upbringing. She had her own mother to help her select a gown, share in the fun and challenges of […]