Giving always causes me to pause. As an item leaves my hands, or a person leaves my presence, and there is emptiness created that feels pregnant, as if my palms hold a phantom, or the room a ghost. Is giving always a form a losing? But what of these things that give and go on giving? As it leaves your hand, it is already there again to be given once more. It is a gift. This is what my children have taught me. A mother’s love, being imperfect, and intentions, always impure, can never give the gift as well as they ought. I desired freedom for my children, the freedom not to choose anything, but to be able to choose the right thing. Looking back I can see their faces. Willing to accept whatever my hands could give them. But as the faces changed, matured with time, I suppose they saw my
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She had asked him to move out by the end of the weekend.
“I still have my job in town.” He looked at us.
Matthew stood up to finish his morning chores before the workday started and asked Grayson to come along. “I’m going to need some help in the morning around here. How far is it for you to drive in to work?”
Grayson said it didn’t take too long. He stayed with us a year. Grayson found himself giving away. He for a while simply gave up. But the giving of that year, as he helped give to the earth and wait in the emptiness, gave more to him than all the hard work of his childhood. He lived as a man broken and in need of gifts. We were willing to open our hands to him. But his healing came as he gave as well.
Grayson rarely spoke. When he did speak it was often in remembering stories around the farm. He even spoke of Griff. As he remembered his first sorrow, he began to face his new sorrow.
One morning, looking over empty plates I spoke, not knowing I had till I was done. “Grayson, my failures could outnumber the
She had asked him to move out by the end of the weekend.
“I still have my job in town.” He looked at us.
Matthew stood up to finish his morning chores before the workday started and asked Grayson to come along. “I’m going to need some help in the morning around here. How far is it for you to drive in to work?”
Grayson said it didn’t take too long. He stayed with us a year. Grayson found himself giving away. He for a while simply gave up. But the giving of that year, as he helped give to the earth and wait in the emptiness, gave more to him than all the hard work of his childhood. He lived as a man broken and in need of gifts. We were willing to open our hands to him. But his healing came as he gave as well.
Grayson rarely spoke. When he did speak it was often in remembering stories around the farm. He even spoke of Griff. As he remembered his first sorrow, he began to face his new sorrow.
One morning, looking over empty plates I spoke, not knowing I had till I was done. “Grayson, my failures could outnumber the