I am the type of reader who — before ubiquitous cell phones — read everything in front of me, from cereal boxes to every word of the newspaper. We lived in Charleston, S.C., when I was in middle school and my favorite column in the local paper was written by Frank Gilbreth Jr., under the pen name Ashley Cooper. Because I loved his column, I found his book “Cheaper by the Dozen.” I was both fascinated and enchanted by big family life.
When we moved to Northern Virginia at the beginning of high school, the Catholic Herald was delivered to our house weekly. I always flipped to the family life column first — still drawn to the beauty and bigness of family. During college, my mom saved the papers for me. Not long after I graduated and got married, I read the final column written by my predecessor. She shared how challenging it can be to write about family as children grow and become young adults. (She was not wrong. Her words echo in my head all the time.)
A mom with a baby and a preschooler, and a dream that I could write columns, I checked out every book in the library on the topic — this was well before Googling became a verb. Then I wrote a piece on snow days and sent it to The Washington Post, as one does when one is young and idealistic. It ran on the front page of the Style section. My dad was thrilled. I was annoyed. They cut the whole last paragraph — the part where I had written about God. I decided never to write for the Post again, as one does when one is young and idealistic.
Instead, I made a copy of that Style section article and some other pieces I’d written, and I sent them to Mike Flach, then editor of the Catholic Herald, with a pitch composed using a template from one of the library books.
I vividly remember where I was the day he called to offer me a regular column. I remember dancing around the room with the baby on my hip. I was so thrilled to have the chance to do this.
I still am.
That baby is 33 years old now.
My children have grown up in this space. Seven of the nine had their births announced here. Many a childhood milestone and even some missteps have been here for strangers to see. My kids have graciously allowed me to share the lessons of parenthood — the good and the hard and the unmistakably anointed. While I always try to tell my story, not theirs, our stories are inextricably intertwined. You good readers have let me pour my heart out here as I wrestled with all that life has offered in the last three decades.
While my kids may quietly dread meeting a stranger in a Catholic bookstore who announces that they “know all about them,” I enjoy meeting you. It’s lovely to connect in real life. By far, my very favorite reader connection happened a few years ago when we went to visit our sons at college. Two girls, friends of my boys, introduced themselves. There was a little giggling, and one of them said that she had to tell me that her mom loved my columns and had been reading them forever. Then she shared that the lore in her family was such that her mom read one of my columns about the gift of new babies, and that started her thinking and praying … and there she was standing right in front of me — this beautiful, darling girl who was once the new baby. It felt like being handed a living footnote of grace. My eyes still fill when I think of it.
This has been a happy home for my thoughts and my prayers and for the counting of my blessings. It has also held space for the sorrows, the uncertainties, and the seasons when life felt heavier than I expected. I have learned, through all these years, that family life is not a polished performance; it is an unfolding mystery of grace, sometimes quiet and hidden, always holy.
If there is anything I have hoped to offer in this space, it is simply this: that God is present. Present in the kitchen light before dawn, in the laundry that never ends, on soccer fields and in dance studios, in the laughter around the table, in the prayers whispered for the ones we love. Even when the story is complicated, even when it is unfinished, he is there, shaping us into something more like his heart.
It has been my great privilege to write with that hope in mind. Thank you for reading, for meeting me in the ordinary places, and for letting me share the view from here. May we continue, together, to look for his glory in the midst of it all.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
