Good morning... I smile at this framed cross-stitch saying my mom made for me a few years back. During the pandemic pause, my mom watched from afar as our ministry to women continued to thrive, mainly through our interactive daily blog posts and through individually scheduled walk-and-talks, outside, one-on-one, social distanced. When my 58th birthday came around in [...]
Good morning... My parents' performance of "Guys and Dolls" at their senior living community near Cleveland, Ohio was priceless, just priceless. The joy filling the room was palpable as I soaked in the experience with my sister and her family. As our mom waved [...]
Good morning... Yesterday, I flew to Cleveland, Ohio to watch my parents perform "Guys and Dolls" with sixty friends from their senior living community. The place is abuzz! At ages 85 and 86, they fit right in with the cast and the chorus members who range from age 72 to 96. Having practiced twice a week for months [...]
Good morning... Sometimes there is a "before," and then there's an "after." Developmentally, our magical thinking evaporates around at around age ten, replaced by concrete perception and object permanency. There is no recovering what is lost. Good-bye peek-a-boo, magic elves doing mischief in the middle of the night, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and make-believe worlds. We can [...]
Good morning... I like to buy $3.00 bunches of outdated flowers from Kroger. Continuing to allow last week's roses to gently unfold, I am keeping them on as they age quietly, at their own pace. With the dying process, the fragrance changes. The soft texture dries and browns. The layers droop down into a new form of beauty. [...]
Good morning... On this hazy Saturday morning, my husband and I debriefed from yesterday over coffee. Much like we did during our long season of parenting four active kids born six years apart, we needed to divide and conquer to cover our important Friday commitments. Steve went to the memorial service of Sarah French while I went to [...]
Good morning... Celebrating her 60th birthday season with my lifelong friend, I read a short poem to the small group gathered. ****** Handling by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer After years, what once was enormous, sharp and piercing now is rounded, polished, fits like a marble in the palm of my hand. This is what comes from touching it, brushing up [...]
Good morning... My friend hosted a stay-at-home sleepover party for the three of us last night. One of us has just turned seventy, the hostess and myself are turning sixty in the coming months. We each are negotiating a gentle bend in the road beneath our feet, shifting from one decade to another. In the middle of the [...]
Good morning... "Good morning, Sue," she wrote after yesterday's blog post, Letting A Child Go. "A friend sent this article to me right before we sent our oldest son to college. I have since shared it with many friends who have been encouraged by the wisdom, so thought I’d pass it on to you in case you think [...]
Good morning... "Wow Sue," she emailed after last week's blog, Facing Life's Uncertainty. "I continue to marvel at how you seem to write posts that I always need…it’s God looking out for me through you, I just know it. So, it’s exactly five days before I drop off our daughter at college. Sky high is the amount of [...]
