Hearing Heart Blog

...that my last post reflected my thoughts on death, and now, after a relative's memorial service this weekend I am starting to build relationships with cousins I haven't seen in 30 years! Building on old contacts. It's just interesting. In addition, this just happens to be the week that our former foster daughter, "K", is visiting. Two years ago we thought we were going to adopt her. It still feels like she's ours, but we share her with another foster family and her brothers. That's interesting, too! Now she's back in her old bedroom where my grown son found her with tears in her eyes. This, after he dunked her in our horse tank and chased her around the backyard like a kid (he's almost 30). She said she was sad because she wants to be with us. When she's with the other family, she wants to be with them. She misses both places. She wants to be an active part of our family and play with her so-called nieces and nephews as they grow up - like sh

As I was folding the laundry yesterday I heard an odd sound from my knees. It was a slippery-squeaky sort of sound, like smooth plastic sliding over smooth plastic. I investigated further, and sure enough, as I shifted my weight even slightly I would hear it. Have you seen the version of the Cinderella story where one of the stepsisters had a knee that creaks? The prince tried to get her to "creak" in time with the music they were dancing to. Last winter I went through therapy for my knees to strengthen the surrounding muscles. Now they're making squeaky music! Once again I'm considering my own mortality. Why is that so difficult, anyway? Every human on this planet knows about death. Everyone dies. We all have hopes that our lives (and our knees) will get better and better as time passes, and yet we also know what's coming. Why I think that death is a gift from God: We're not what we want to be. We lost the original glory of life that God breathed into us when

He thought his head was too big? Where did he get that idea? My second son confided in his wife – he had known since he was a small child that his head was too big and he had always been conscious of it. Why did he think that? For a few minutes I was completely lost for an explanation. I wanted to be angry, or offended, or something! How could he think he was less than wonderful – after the way I’d raised him? Then I knew. His brother, my firstborn, resembles the part of the family with a narrower profile and longer-shaped faces. Being my first, his head squeezed more easily through the never-before stretched birth canal. But my second son was a heftier build with a rounder face and head. One of our family stories is about how quickly his birthing progressed because of his weight (gravity, I guess) and his competition with his brother. The story goes, “he needed to get here to set his brother straight”. Labor was only 2 and ½ hours! Of my four children, he resembled the other branch of