When I was a young child, I never thought that I shared an especially close relationship with my father. I always respected and loved him very much but we never really talked about anything that I thought was meaningful. He would teach me how to do things like how to throw a ball or how to safely use a saw, but we didn’t have the father-daughter talks about emotional stuff. I thought that was just…
Bad days, we all have them. One day both the air conditioning and driver’s side window in your car decide to both stop working. You have just worked some overtime and are thinking how best to enjoy the extra cash you worked so hard for when your license plate renewal notice comes in the mail. You are at the gym training for a 5k charity race you have coming up and next thing you…
Here is a picture of a leaf I saw while walking on a trail with my mother the other day. I took the picture because to me it looked like a heart and I was thinking of the love of my life who was working hard at home at the time. This may sound a bit over the top for some of you, and that’s ok. My point here is you find and attract…
Everything ages and declines, and then it is gone, this is the fall season. Next, we mourn our loss, which brings a chill to our hearts, this is winter. But then as our hearts begin to heal and to warm, we see that there is always something new coming into our lives to help fill the void, this is the joy of spring. And with renewed excitement and adventure we enjoy what this new thing…
It’s not every day that you find a great opportunity to instill a life lesson in your child. Finding a set of circumstances that will supply enough wow factor to really make a child of 9 or 10 ponder some cerebral topics is quite rare. And it’s even rarer for the event or activity to have a lasting effect on a child. But on occasion, it happens and the results are truly amazing. A…
There is a certain peace and calmness that washes over you when you have reached the place where you are meant to be. I never considered myself to be a person who fits in easily. In school, I was always on the fringe and never really a part of any group. And as an adult, I was most comfortable in a small group, and even that was sometimes a forced effort. But I have finally…
There always seems to be this burning desire to see the family that you wish you had. We use rose-colored glasses and excuse behavior that we would never tolerate from others. And all too often, we find ways to blame ourselves for the mean or hurtful actions of our family members. We tell ourselves that we deserve to be treated poorly or that we somehow failed to be the loving sibling or child that we…
Humans were never meant to be solitary creatures. But progress and innovation have made that fact easy to forget. Now a trip to the store produces food and clothing, shelter is bought not built, as is our means of getting from point a to point b. We no longer need the help of others to meet these needs. It would appear that by earning money, one can live completely independently from others. But the…
No person is perfect. As much as each of us would like to believe that we are, we are not. And making peace with this fact of life is the first step to making progress in reaching your goals in life. Granted some of us might have greater challenges which have left not just small chips or nicks on our hearts instead, there are gaping holes. But all of these flaws serve two purposes.…
It’s always difficult to face the reality of a parent’s illness. Most children grow and thrive within the warm, protective sphere known as a loving parents care. And even when the relationship has been difficult or dysfunctional, there still seems to be a connection of more than simply genetics. This emotional connection to a parent might simply be a single, thin shred of hope that someday this complicated, or almost nonexistent relationship, will somehow…