Category: perfection

My Imperfect Valentine Heart

/ colleen arnold / 9 Comments Featured

Jackie was only four days old. She was a crier, and she wasn’t the playful baby sister that Gina had anticipated. Her bald little head and pale eyebrows were delightful to me but looked like an alien face to Gina. And at 6 years old, having to share mom and dad with a baby who looks like a creature from outer space is a challenge.


I was still in the same clothes I wore home from the hospital (a baby who never sleeps can do that to even a normally sane person), but when I realized it was Valentine’s Day and Gina was bringing a friend home from school in a few hours, I knew I had to do something. Neil had helped Gina write out her cards for the first-grade mailbox, but this year, we needed more. I left baby Jackie sleeping with Neil and praying no one would see me, headed off to the local drug store.

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Pretending Life is Perfect is Exhausting!

/ colleen arnold / 5 Comments

 

It’s Halloween and has been the case with all holidays since Neil died, I find myself reflecting on past celebrations. Like most parents, we started dressing up for Halloween when the girls were babies and created some imaginative costumes over the years.

 

 

We had fun with decorations, too – there were always pumpkin carvings, pipe cleaner spiders and black construction paper bats all over the house. Dinner included treats like brain bread and carrot fingers. We always enjoyed using our imaginations and pretending.

 

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Even Our Mistakes Can Be God’s Miracles

/ colleen arnold / 6 Comments

Isn’t it amazing how God can take our mistakes and turn them into something beautiful?

For one of my daughters, life has been like a musical. Her grade school teachers repeatedly asked her to stop singing out loud during class. In the car, she sang along to every song on the radio, drowning out the original performer. She was the first child to join the adult choir at church. And she was good: perfect pitch, clear tone, and a voice as robust as any opera singer. No one was surprised when she signed up to perform in the fifth-grade talent show.

She chose to sing, “My Heart Will Go On,” from Titanic. It was perfect for her: she can sing Celine Dion better than Celine. She was poised and confident as she walked out onto the stage. Continue reading →

The Old Table; Treasure or Trash

/ colleen arnold / 4 Comments

I am sitting at the ancient dining room table writing. As happens far too often, my concentration wanes and I look around the room. My gaze lands on the surface of the table and I notice the many scratches and stains that now live there. It has become worn and scarred from its years of use, not just as a place for meals, but as the central focus in my house.

I study the shabby veneer from my seated vantage point and then stand to see the damage more closely. My hands rub the once shiny surface as if I was reading Braille. I find one daughter’s name  scratched into the spot where she so often sat. I feel pits where impatient toddlers once banged their utensils. I see ink stains where frustrated hands accidently pressed straight through their homework papers.  I touch the burn marks made by meals served hurriedly to quiet hungry voices. Continue reading →

There is No Perfect, But There Can Still be Joy

/ colleen arnold / 2 Comments

You know those incredible moments that crystalize into perfect memories you treasure forever? The ones that make you wish time could stand still and life would never change?

It was a New Year’s Eve long ago. My newborn baby, only three days old, slept peacefully in my arms. My plump, comfy chair was pulled against the French doors leading out to the deck. I could feel the cold draft and my fluffy blanket was wrapped snuggly around us. My toddler sat on the floor cuddling the dog, while her older sister hummed Christmas carols beside us.

Neil’s annual fireworks display was toned down that year, because I didn’t want to take the baby outside. Instead of the street, the fireworks were lined in a row of about twenty on the deck railing. As he hopped gleefully down the row, lighting each one as he went, he dipped and weaved to avoid the sparks and ashes. Then he retraced his steps, knocking the spent ones off the deck, lining up a new row and repeating the whole process. “Pop, pop, pop,” two-year-old Jackie exclaimed cheerfully over and over again, as we watched through the glass doors. Gina oohed and awed with each new display, and my sweet babe slept through it all. Continue reading →