Parenting

As of this week, I’ve been married forty years to the same person.  Okay. Not the same person.  He’s changed.  I’ve changed.  And it’s not the same marriage.  It’s changed and we’ve changed. In many ways, it’s been more like a series of two or three marriages,.

When new friends ask what wisdom we have to share. I ‘m struck dumb. Those of you who know me understand what an unusual occurrence this is.   Looking back there’s the same feeling I had when I first set my eyes on the Grand Canyon. It’s just too big to grasp.

Generalities fly through the air. Kindness, rooted commitment.  Then specific words come to mind:  communication (learning what that means and how to do it better), acceptance, tolerance.  But mostly there’s a parade of images, single frames that become a whole, like flipping a book of line drawings that create animation. Viewing my own mental snapshots of these two young strangers and watching how shared joy and grief and pain has changed them together and separately simply boggles my mind. Click for Full Article

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Years ago, when my children were small, I set a modest goal of celebrating the return of light as it is practiced by most of the people of the world. My thought was that Winter Holiday was a chance to give my children an appreciation for global diversity at the same time they honored their own religious heritage. By Christmas Eve, what they had gained was a deep respect for Mother in Meltdown. Click for Full Article

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Navigating the Twilight Zone of Caring

February 20, 2008Navigating Crisis

It’s 4 A.M. The phone rings.  Your mind jumps into hyperspeed. Do you know where your child is? Your ailing parent? Your spouse or best friend?  Although you get to the phone before the answering machine picks up at ring five, the trip seems like slow-mo underwater ballet. You receive the dreaded news. This is [...]

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