August 1979, thirty-five years ago this month, was the first time I felt I was more of an adult than my parents. After my husband and I graduated from law school and took the bar exam, he had to go on his two weeks’ annual training with the Naval Reserves, […]
Continue readingTag Archives: mother
Untold Stories From Pictures: A Brother-Sister Relationship
One of my tasks before my mother’s recent funeral was to put together a slide show of her life. I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that my father and maternal grandfather both took many photographs over the years, so the problem was not finding pictures of my mother. She lived […]
Continue readingLiberation and Independence
One of the joys of blogging is finding other writers who touch your heart and soul. My last post was about my mother’s death on July 4. That night I was unable to sleep. The Independence Day fireworks screamed and popped throughout our suburban neighborhood, their celebratory bursts incongruous to […]
Continue readingMemories of Mother
A few weeks ago, my family started hospice care for my mother. She had been hospitalized, and when she returned to her assisted living facility, she had great difficulty eating and swallowing—a typical progression of Alzheimer’s Disease. She passed away on Friday, July 4, 2014. Needless to say, these recent […]
Continue readingProof of When I Couldn’t Write
I’ve mentioned before that I can’t remember not knowing how to read. I learned to read quite young, and I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t name each letter of the alphabet on the page. And as far back as I can remember, I knew the letters were put […]
Continue readingMemorial Day and a Tantrum To Remember
I described my son’s tantrum in my last post, so it’s only fair that in this post I describe one of his sister’s—her first tantrum, in fact. It occurred on Memorial Day, when she was just two weeks old. My husband and I took our family to see his parents […]
Continue readingMusings on a Prussian Coffee Service
Many family heirlooms—or future heirlooms—have sentimental value because of the stories behind them. But the stories of others are lost to time. I have a porcelain coffee pot and six matching demitasse cups and saucers that are in the latter category. My mother sent the set to me not too […]
Continue readingHow Close Are We To the Civil War?
An article in The Wall Street Journal on May 10, 2014, by Michael M. Phillips, titled “Still Paying for the Civil War: Veterans’ Benefits Live On Long After Bullets Stop,” fascinated both my husband and me. My husband, because he has read many volumes of military history about the Civil […]
Continue readingCelebrate Children’s Book Week
The 95th celebration of Children’s Book Week begins May 12, 2014. Children’s Book Week is designed to foster the love of reading in children. It is the longest-running literary initiative in the United States, and is administered by Every Child A Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization. I’ve written before about […]
Continue readingMemories of Green and Orange on St. Patrick’s Day
We celebrated the major holidays in our family—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, but we didn’t celebrate many minor holidays. Except St. Patrick’s Day. My mother made sure we celebrated that. My maternal grandmother (Nanny Winnie) was half Irish and half Scotch. My Irish great-grandmother, Cecelia Ryan, died well before my mother […]
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