My father passed on Sept 1, 2001, and I won’t lie and say that a part of me wasn’t ready but the little girl who just lost her lifetime hero still wanted to understand why. Another part of my sadness was because of my son who would turn 11 in less than two weeks. He had lost one grandpa just before Christmas in 2000, and now his other grandpa and best buddy had passed just…
When I tell people my story, I’m always told that I have a lot of Resilience, but I’ve never understood what it means. According to the Oxford dictionary, Resilience means “The Capacity to recover from trauma”. My life has been full of events that will challenge many and provide a whole new meaning to resilience. My story begins in 1990 at the end of Ceausescu’s reign, the Romanian dictator who took the population’s…
Little Golden Books, now celebrating their 75th birthday, were among my favorite childhood books. Appearing on the market in 1942, Little Golden Books were the first high-quality books for children most parents could afford. Priced at just 25 cents and available where people shopped every day, they caused an instant sensation and were sold by the hundreds of thousands. My all-time favorite is still The Little Red Hen, nearly seven decades later. In fact,…
So much has changed in the world in the past 50 years. An entirely new generation has come of age and brought with it the mantra that they are the center of it all. Their focus and concern never seem to drift beyond their own reflection that they see in the mirror each day. Millions of dollars are spent on keeping themselves looking and feeling young and making their lives easier. Electronics are used to complete mundane…
My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was always an important part of life. Many of my fondest childhood memories include holidays with her as well as summer days spent at her house. She was the only grandparent that was a part of my life after my grandfather, her husband, passed away just before my 5th birthday. But I never felt that I missed out on having more grandparents, she was always more than enough for me.…
Anything of significant value in this world must be held with your heart and not your hands. No one can ever take it away from you, and only you can decide to discard it. So, hold all that is dear to you safely in your heart and know that it will always be with you.
It is amazing to me how my mind can play tricks on me, and how happy I am to accept the ruse without even a shred of doubt. Time slips away like sand through my fingers, but I feel the tiny grains as they trickle through my grasp. I know I feel the sand moving because I try to clasp my fingers closed more tightly to stop the sand from escaping, but it…
When you are sitting on the beach there is never a bad view. The tide comes in and out, but the view is only different, neither one is better or worse than the other. High tide brings the water up close to us and carries with it untold potential treasures from some far off place beneath the water. And when the tide goes out, it leaves behind a clean slate free of footprints.…
Telemarketing calls. We’ve all gotten them and most of the time it takes only a second to end the call and the interruption. Today my phone rang and when I picked it up and glanced at the screen my heart stopped. It was a number that I didn’t recognize but the location was Cincinnati, Ohio. Instantly, I felt a wave of panic wash over me. My dearest friend lives in southern Ohio and Cincinnati…
Sadly, our society has chosen to use two words interchangeably, when they actually have very different meanings. Stars and heroes are two very different things. When we apply the term star to a person, in most cases it is very accurate. A “star” is a person who is bright and shiny, one who sparkles for attention and whose luster or attraction could be very fleeting. After all, the stars in the sky do burn…