As much fun as it is to travel and explore with my husband, I love the routine-ness of our days at home. Cooking, conversation, reading, watching football, doing laundry, writing, sipping tea, and knitting with snow falling and fireplace burning. To name a few.

“I’ll wait to open gifts,” I said to myself as large flakes drifted downward. “First, the trail along the river.” Because there’s nothing more magical on Christmas morning than hiking near the sound of water while white fluffy stuff swirls every which way.

In my early widow days, a friend’s husband was settling into Alzheimer’s. Once a week, I took him for a country drive or a walk along the river, which allowed my friend time to run errands and keep appointments.

While riding the Portland Metro one day, Sarah Thebarge met Hadhi, a Somali refugee who was struggling to rear five young daughters after her husband walked out. Sarah had left her Ivy League education and successful career in New England to start over in Oregon.

“You mean we drove all the way down here for nothing?” the couple asked. I was in the volunteer check-in line for the annual Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the Salvation Army in Tucson. The man and woman in front of me were clearly annoyed.

My friend Susan carries a pain no mother should ever have to bear—the devastation of watching her son, Matthew, hand-cuffed and led from the courtroom to be incarcerated.

Once upon a time, I served on staff at a Christian boarding high school that was home to teenagers from across the country and around the globe. I loved these young people, and I loved the part-time work—activities director, cheerleading coach, overseer of community service.

Megan Martin and her son showed up at our place back when Dan and I were first married. We had sorted through our duplicate household items, and Megan was there to pick up the excess home furnishings.

In a conversation with my daughter and son-in-law around their dining table, I tried to explain how the years of hard news and disappointments affected my outlook. As sorrowful events piled one on top of the other—like so many crushed, stacked cars in a junkyard—I eventually became accustomed to the brokenness. I still believed God could do anything, anything. Just not for me

We hiked every day, even on the couple of intermittent-rain days. The reward for putting up with the wetness was a dusting of snow on the mountains the next day. Dan dragged me out of bed before sunrise—twice—so we could catch the alpenglow. If you’ve never seen pink frosting on a mountaintop, you need to get out more.

“It’s very rare.” My friend, Howard, called on his drive home from Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. “And fast-growing.”

Howard’s cancer diagnosis came out of the blue. “They’re saying a matter of weeks.” I was stunned. Everyone was stunned.

While relocating from Oregon to southern California, I was escorted off the Pacific Coast Highway by two patrol cars with flashing lights. I’m blaming it on my son, Jeremy. He recommended a jog over to the coastal highway from the 101.

Our grandson, William, spent a few days with us recently. When all the grands are together, there is rowdy fun. But one grandchild at a time provides the unique opportunity for deeper conversations and greater bonding.

“Can I deliver a Chai and leave it on the front porch so as not to disturb the patient if you pick it up while it’s hot?” The email arrived out of the blue from a retired schoolteacher friend.

“No, you may not drop and run,” I countered. “I need a hug. Besides, isn’t that a run-on sentence?”

Dan and I recently returned after a week of wandering through Olympic National Park and down Washington’s ruggedly gorgeous coastline.

A few years back, my mom blacked out and hit the floor in her small-town pharmacy. Her physician couldn’t find anything wrong. “Mom,” I implored, “come stay with us until the doctors can figure this out.” She balked.

This week on the lake and around the campfire, I’ve been reflecting on how Dan and I met and married—a miraculous, seemingly random turn of events: if this one little thing hadn’t happened, then this other big thing wouldn’t have happened.

My daughter Summer was with us as her dad was dying of cancer in the hospital bed in our living room. Her cell phone chirped. It was the international adoption agency. “We have a referral for three brothers who would do well in a family with children. Are you interested?”

The world is much smaller than I thought. I recently met new members of my family I hadn’t known previously—brothers and sisters in Latvia, this tiny country that was once part of the Soviet Union and has only been independent since 1991.

On a beautiful 740-acre piece of rolling hills with patches of forest, stands a children’s camp and a working sheep ranch. Eagle’s Wings. 

I had several stand-out high school teachers, but a seventh-grade teacher comes to mind when I think about undercover influence. Mrs. Wells. She invited me to join her after school one day a week with a handful of other seventh graders.