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The gift of space
“The quality of your life has more to do with what you remove from your life than what you add to it. Give yourself the gift of space.” ~ Cheryl Richardson With summer approaching, my to-do list is growing longer by the day. Along with my annual gardening projects, there are road trips and day trips I’d like to take while the weather is warm. I want to spend a weekend away with our grandson. I want to invite friends over for barbecues and patio parties. I want to add more miles to my daily walks. And I want to do everything on my summer wish list without neglecting my…
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Fresh sparks of daily joy
“Joy has been leaking out of our lives. The small pleasures of the ordinary day seem almost contemptible, and glance off us lightly.…So, perhaps it’s a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out of wet shoes and socks, for instance. Bath robes. Yawning and stretching. Real tomatoes.” ~ Barbara Holland, Endangered Pleasures These days, sadly, we can count on a non-stop news cycle of war casualties, airline calamities, dangerous storms, and unsettling political turmoil. Which is why I always look forward to David Muir’s “America Strong” segment on ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Concluding the nightly news broadcast, “America Strong” highlights uplifting stories of generosity and resilience, giving…
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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…
