Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
Go play in traffic, kids! was a favourite direction of one of my aunt’s. This particular aunt was snarly, often critical, and never filtered in her commentary on life. Her favourite point of contention was how spoiled we children were, how unappreciative, etc. She also frequently threatened to move to Alaska to get away from […]
Read MoreThere is a woman following me around, stabbing me in the chest every time I go near my husband, so I go off on my own. The pain is too much to bear. “Why are you alone?” someone asks me. “It’s just easier that way.” “Why don’t you stab her back?” “She only wounds me, […]
Read MoreMy aunt gave up her daughter for a chance at love. Can’t remember which marriage it was – there were seven in all – but he didn’t want children, so she just asked around if someone would take M, then sixteen. A few relatives tried, but my cousin, the depths of whose rejection is unfathomable, strayed […]
Read More“Your homework for this week is to write about the things your mother taught you,” my psychologist advised at the end of our session. Memories have been resurfacing and along with them rage. I am incensed that I was never protected from some of the things that happened to me. “Well, she taught me that […]
Read More“Mom, why do we never spend time with your family? You have all these cousins I have never met. What’s up with that?” I cringe when the topic of my mother’s family comes up, never really quite certain how to explain. “None of them like me,” is the easy explanation, and in part, it’s true. […]
Read MoreMinutes after my first husband and I were settling into our honeymoon suite, I got a call from my father advising me that my oldest sister had gone from the wedding reception to emergency. “I think you better come,” he told me solemnly. So we packed up and headed back. I had known that my […]
Read More“My dreams have turned violent lately, lots of blood. What could that mean?” “What does blood represent to you?” “Well passion, life giving, but these dreams have a woman being decapitated, a baby being cut with scissors, and it always occurs in connection to my childhood home.” “Not life giving, then.” “I usually convert the […]
Read More“Are you guys brother and sister?” the question came from our soon-to-be five-year-old granddaughter. Dropped off by her mother for an overnight stay, we had a day of cousins and uncles and aunts, and of course, Grandma and Grandpa. I brushed off her comment with a: “No, we’re married”, but the innocent observation shook me. […]
Read MoreWrote a prescription for the perfect man: made him tall, strong, romantic, dependable, family oriented; told myself I was ready. Projected expectations onto the first likely candidate – single dad, three full-time kids – read desire in his brooding eyes, ignored the burden of his grief, the irrational speed at which we moved, the complications […]
Read MoreFrom the time I was preteen, I was obsessed with drawing the same cartoon over and over; the first illustration showed the shapely backside of a long-haired temptress, and the next frame revealed the fact that the things are not as they appear – a woman with a monstrously ugly face. It was a self-portrait, […]
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One Woman's Quest II 