by Tina Traster
There we were, on our winter break vacation, driving to our hotel after a day of skiing in the Canadian Laurentians.
“I miss my violin,” Julia sighed, dreamily gazing out at the frozen tundra, not really talking to either my husband nor I. Just thinking out loud.
“Really?” I said, whipping my head around to the back seat.
“Yeah, I should have brought it with me,” she lamented. “I miss it.”
by Lori Pelikan Strobel
All of a sudden it becomes “the holidays” as I turn my calendar to November. I begin to think, Oh, my, how did it get here so quickly again? The beautiful leaves have fallen and now make a dull brown carpet beneath my feet. I rush to remove them to make way for the first white snowfall.
The wind seems to blow stronger and my bones begin to feel weaker as the coldness settles into them. Darkness drops its curtain hastily, as if it’s advising me to prepare for what lies ahead. I snuggle into the couch and sigh, “It’s too cold and dark to go back outside.” The house glows from the flames in the fireplace and the thoughts that the season of family is here warms my heart. The holiday season of bounty is before me. […]
by Monique Faison Ross
Nervously, after my adult daughters were already told what was happening, or more accurately, had figured it out on their own, I sat my 19-year-old son down to have “The Talk.” “Mom, what?” he said with growing anxiety. ”Just tell me.” And, so I did: “Leah and I are dating.” (Leah is a woman, of course). With a long deep sigh of relief, I had finally said it.
I stared at him waiting for his reaction and my presumed need to defend my reasons. I was well prepared to explain why at this juncture in my life my relationship with Leah had changed my entire world and would, in turn, change theirs. I wanted to explain that it was not just an overused cliché that spills out of the mouths of many couples but that Leah did, in fact, complete me. […]
by Randi Hoffman
Sitting at my computer in my bedroom I can hear an old man screaming at my daughter. He says, “Get back here! You are being very disrespectful!” She is sitting at her father’s desk in the living room, crying and staring at the ground. The normally cordial and gentle rabbi is on Skype attempting to go over her Torah portion with her. She had gone on a quest searching the apartment for Wite Out without informing him, leaving him looking at an empty chair. This is not a good situation, and I have a feeling it will end badly. […]
by Amy Wright Glenn
My 18-month-old son blissfully naps and I decide to catch up on some emails. I look at my inbox and notice a request for advice. I open the email, curious. After reading the first sentence, I take a deep breath.
“I experienced my first stillborn birth as a doula. I am so confused.”
The new doula in question had witnessed one of life’s most painful experiences– the birth of a lifeless infant. […]
by Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D., and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D.
Do you sometimes feel like time is getting away from you? I make list after list of what I want to accomplish each day – and often get a large chunk completed – but never seem to get everything done. Now that I make my lists on my PDA, it’s easier to just change the date and roll the reminders over to the next day. Yet the sense of satisfaction that I feel when I do finish a project is a great motivator to become more focused so that I can attain more of my goals each day. […]
by Janice Eidus
Twelve years ago, in middle age, you and your husband begin the process of adopting a child from Guatemala. You’re assured by your lawyers that the adoption will go quickly, and that within a few months, you’ll be a mother. Still, you’re intimidated by the seemingly endless mounds of paperwork, and by how you must be fingerprinted and meet numerous times with social workers and lawyers. You assure yourself that it’s all worth it to become the mother of a child who needs you, and whom you need. […]
by Lora Freeman Williams
A pregnancy test is like a Rorscach: one’s inner world gets tossed back at her in sharp relief. I stared at mine and felt the weight of my childhood and the hope of a different future in a dizzying twist of emotions.
My own mother had become pregnant with me in 1968, when she was single and an as yet undiagnosed schizophrenic. Exhibiting a striking combination of paranoia and common sense, she moved herself and me a few hundred miles away from her dysfunctional relations and embarked on the next 13 years of our life together. […]
by Serena Kirby
Whether as a result of increased fatigue or decreased fertility, the reality is that many later in life mums have only one child.
“Spoilt Brat”, “Little Emperor” or simply “The Boss”, these are just some of the phrases often attached to the only child. Add to that the belief that loneliness goes hand-in-hand with the single-child and it’s no wonder some older mothers feel guilt and regret for the sibling-less life of their one and only. […]
by Lisa Froman
NEVER IN LIFE is there a need to call on the power of grace and humility more than at midlife. As we take measure of our lives, we can find ourselves dismayed, discouraged and disillusioned to find our lives simply no longer fit us. All that we thought we were, no longer makes sense. Suddenly, we don’t fit in our own skin, never mind our own clothes. We look in the mirror and see faces, even bodies, we no longer recognize.
At midlife, many of us begin to feel a shift, or an unearthing, as I like to call it. Our jobs may or may no longer interest us in the same way, our relationships with our spouses or partners may have shifted —for better or worse—or even ended. […]