Candids, No. 1

spilled coffee, an apology, and witnessing the splendor

My toes are curled up around each other, tucked inside the slippers Q fetched for me this morning—“These ones, Mama? The ones Dory got for you?”—and I pick up Jay’s coffee mug, which he used for my pour-over this morning. On thew table, a puddle of brown liquid spreads across the empty space the mug left. A spill R made, when he threw his Bluey cup in frustration. The Bluey cup is somewhere lying on its side below me.

He’s sitting in time out.

I am crying.

Not over spilled coffee, ha. But because I am watching Mom becoming someone new, for better and worse, I’m telling Jay.

It’s like going from ‘glory to glory,’ he says.

We didn’t know the glory of Before, but there’s a new glory we get to witness now, a glory unfolding—I’m thinking now, writing it out, it’s not unlike the splendor of which Toni Morrison speaks:

“Although life in life is terminal and life after life is everlasting, He is with us always, in life, after it and especially in between, lying in wait for us to know the splendor.” —Reverend Richard Misner, in Morrison’s 1999 novel, Paradise. (307).

My mom gets to know him being with us always, as I have known it, as the seldom blessed few of us who witness death and pain with wide eyes know it.

“He is with us always, in life, after it and especially in between.”

There is splendor, here, a splendor to which she is witness—much more than we are, who witness her, in her pain.

Glory, to the Father; and to the Son; and to the Holy Spirit;

I look to my son, who is quiet now. He has found a way to occupy himself in time-out, found a way to make the most of an undesirable situation.

I think, This is the moment I’ve been watching for this week, as Ross tells me he’s sorry for spilling my coffee. Before he can untuck his toes, Jay runs for my phone, so I can snap the photo.

I wanted you to be witness to this splendor too.

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

After apologizing, R climbs on my lap while Dad and Sister read from The Jesus Storybook Bible. A Saturday morning, indeed.

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What splendor have you witnessed this week? Please share!

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As for me, I’ve also been:

Reading;

Among other books and Substacks, Martin Laird’s Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (2006). Though we’ve spent our Christmas money, I told Jay this one was important enough to dip into the savings in order to purchase (after testing it out with the library, as I do with most of the books I’ve recently purchased). Laird asserts:

“Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible” (15).

—a reality I have experienced in my deepest pain and Mom is knowing now. Take me deeper, Lord.

Listening;

Brandi freaking Carlile. Especially, more recently as in the past two days, The Firewatcher’s Daughter. You’re welcome.

After Jay finished reading her memoir, Broken Horses, having passed on the cliff notes and pictures to me, we’ve been evermore hooked.

And along with Brandi, I’ve been hearing absolutely nothing at all—thanks to these: Loop Ear Plugs. You’re also welcome.

and Making;

lots! But primarily headbands for Mom to style her forthcoming beanies, and matching headbands for us girls.

See you soon.

C