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What will you tolerate?
“I have insecurities and flaws, of course, but I don’t hang out with anyone who points them out to me.” ~Adele I was lucky to grow up with folks who believed in positive reinforcement. They encouraged my interests and were generous with praise and compliments. Their interpretation of the Golden Rule still resonates: “Be kind, respectful, and treat other people the way you want to be treated.” Over the years I’ve learned that not everyone was raised by the same operating instructions. So I had to develop a thicker skin, especially when I was the target of nasty remarks or thoughtless behavior. Sometimes constructive criticism is necessary and useful. And…
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Goodbye to Mom’s house
“No matter how far we’ve come, our parents are always in us.” ~ Brad Meltzer Even after we’ve grown up and moved on, the homes of our parents still hold many of our family artifacts, memories, and stories. After your last parent dies, selling their home — and everything they accumulated — is a difficult part of the grieving process. Yet it can be therapeutic, too. As we begin to empty my mother-in-law’s home, I’m reminded of a column I wrote for The Sunday Oakland Press after reflecting on the memory of selling my mother’s home. You can read it online here. ~CL
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Making it up as we go
“Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That’s the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what’s left, that’s the part you have to make up as you go.” ~Katharine Weber When a mother is the nucleus of a family, her death changes everything. Yesterday, my sister-in-law and I agreed that everything feels different, almost surreal, after our mother-in-law’s death on Saturday. Family life had revolved around her for years — and even more so as she neared the end of her life. Though all of us had expected this, our family will feel a bit unmoored while…
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Those who comfort us
“Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you. His life also is filled with much hardship and sadness….But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters on Life I’ve been thinking a lot about grief, loss, and comfort in recent weeks. My mother-in-law died Saturday in her home, just a couple of weeks short of her 94th birthday. She was the widowed matriarch and pillar of a large family, a strong-willed woman who outlived her initial diagnosis after a stroke last year. My husband…
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Happy places
“Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.” ~Charlotte Bronte Sometimes, if I’m not mindful, disturbing news can poison my mood for days. As behavioral psychologists remind us, what we “feed” our minds influences so many other areas of our lives. A constant diet of doom, gloom, gossip, or conspiracy theories can drive anyone totally nuts. Is ignorance bliss? Not really. But it helps to have a sense of humor — along with the willingness to look for the good in other people and things. When I’m feeling down, for instance, it helps to visit…
