Small Stories of a Big God
Remembering Timmy
The boy with the blond hair poking out from the dirty baseball cap grabbed his mitt and ambled across the lawn, then crossed the street. “Where you going?” I called after Timmy. “To the school.” He turned enough to catch my face, then he skipped onto the sidewalk....
The Last Shift
Grabbing my bags, I tread softly down the hall, passing the hushed rooms of sleeping patients, chirping monitors and the light banter at the nurses’ station. Someone moans. I don’t say goodbye because I am becoming more and more like my mother, who abstained entirely...
Somewhere on the Way to Here
*For all the people who told me I should write about The School Bus. Here you go. The old school bus pulled up to the designated street corner in Manhattan, stopping in front of a loose gathering of 15 people. Bruce pulled open the door and jumped onto the sidewalk,...
The Garden Near the Cross
It was pathetic but also sweet – like an ugly puppy. There we were, staring at the cold dirt, two signs of spring – a smatter of purple crocuses and a couple of neighbors talking to each other. Really, this is Cape Cod. It draws people who can’t run any farther away...
Noel (Offline)
*** Dear friends, This is a repost, but also a timeless reminder to slow down this Christmas season! The internet went out on November 24th. At first I thought, No big deal. I can get around it. But one day and one hour with tech support turned into a week and...
Just Like That
Big Sid must be dead now. I was a teenager when we first met and he seemed old. My parent’s age anyway. Like forties? He was big. I see him flopped into and filling an even bigger chair, his sleeves rolled up above his thick meaty hands. A white collared shirt...
Forgetting Death
Aunt Lila was dying. She knew this, but often forgot. No one knew when it all began, the cancer that likely sprouted as first a small seed within a dormant ovary, a sleeping grain of terror. Then it grew, and grew, indiscreetly dropping more seeds into the dark womb...
The Messenger
How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble! We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear. Job 14:1-3 Somewhere after Abraham but before Moses, there lived a very good man named Job. Full of wealth...
The Call of the Cross
In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever, Till my ransomed soul shall find Rest beyond the river. – Fanny Crosby 1869 Hard-boiled eggs.Jelly beans.Easter Lilies.Yuk. Add to that being stuffed into an ill-fitting Easter dress that my mother made, with a death...
The Boy From Somewhere Better
First I remember the wind. Of course, it was my first winter in Wellfleet, huddled near the tip of the Cape on a narrow sandbar inhabited by poets and pirates. If you believe in ghosts and madmen, you would find them there, but only in the winter and the wind. I...
Sent With Love
Surrender is not the surrender of the external life, but of the will. When that is done, all is done. There are very few crisis in life: the great crisis is the surrender of the will. – Oswald Chambers My mother had a saying that would likely rattle the teeth of most...
A New Year’s Revelation (What I Learned in a Cloud)
“There she is!” I follow my son Miles, daughter-in-law Erin and two grandkids, Olive and Quincy, across the hotel lobby. That’s what I do on this trip to Viet Nam. Just follow. “Hi Sue!” A small Asian woman turns her head, which is wrapped in a bright yellow plaid...
Two Cards and a Baby Boy
Wham! The mail slot on the front door creaked open, then snapped shut, the mail pushed through onto the floor. As I bent down to gather it, I noticed two card-shaped envelopes and I smiled as I retrieved them from the floor. I love cards, any cards, but Christmas...
Hero to Zero
“Everybody come look at this!” a nurse called from the hallway, waving us all towards the break room. My assumption was there was more food – pizza, sandwiches, cakes that had been flooding in from the community. Or maybe more cards from elementary school students....
The Last Vacuum Cleaner
I bought a good vacuum, a sleek German-made canister that hums while it works, determined and swift. It’s uncharacteristic for me to splurge on an appliance. My washer was the cheapest Home Depot could offer. The dryer was donated. But this was my thought: ...
Waking Up to a Priest
“Psssssst! Wake up miss!” My eyes snapped open and focused on the jowly, soft face of a priest, his eyes searching mine through thick wire rim glasses. I sat up from the hard pew and quickly looked around. We were alone. “Mass starts in an hour,” he informed me....
Reflections on a Father’s Love
It was clearly a man’s world, the hardware store in downtown Old Greenwich. And I felt part honored and part trespasser when I followed my dad through the door . It was Saturday morning, part of a ritual my dad kept, probably to keep himself grounded after a week of...
The Good Dirt
Behind the house, within the backyard, is another yard enclosed in a chain link fence. When I first saw it, I thought the other yard was an odd cutout of the neighbors yard. Why else would you run a chain link fence through a nice looking yard? But the fence had been...
The Weight of Twenty Years
Twenty years ago the 26th of this month, I gazed upon the lifeless body of the boy who made me mom. Spencer was a few weeks short of 22, a young man really, but always a boy to his mom, as I point out to my other two sons, who are now fully men. Twenty years. It...
The Club With No Title (and Five Things You Can Do To Help)
We don’t have a title! I wasn’t quite sure I understood my friend, sitting across her living room from me. What? We don’t have a title. You know, like woman who have lost their husbands are called “widows.” But mothers who have lost a child...
The Day After Thanksgiving (or Get Back to Work)
***After writing several Thanksgiving blogs, here is a repost honoring the day after. And giving thanks for Work! "The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the...
Spencersmom.com Turns 10!
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14 Blog: (noun) a website containing a writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc. Blogged, blogging (verb) August 2011, ten...
The 2021 Spencer Macleod Memorial Three Point Shoot Out
Bap, bap, bap...the sound of a basketball hitting pavement still gives me a strange sense of comfort. I am transported back to gymnasiums, the squeak of sneakers on the floor, the shriek of a ref’s whistle. Though my eyes never left my child, eventually I learned the...
On The Other Side of the Bed : Six Take-a-Ways From a Nurse Who Became a Patient
I held the remote loosely in my hand, respectful of the power within. How many times had I reviewed the colored buttons? The yellow light bulb, green TV in big letters flanked by volume and channel buttons, then the large red button at the top, which for many years...
If You Have a Cough, Fever or You’ve Just Had Enough
He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure. Isaiah 36:6 “If you have a cough, sore throat or fever, please report immediately to airport security at...