At 2:20 p.m. on Friday afternoon, my mother passed away into the next world. Her soul and spirit are now beginning a new phase in the journey that God gives all of us. As such, the rest of us in the family, in various ways, are beginning new phases in our own journeys.
Category: personal
breaking the silence on a private matter
My sister broke the silence on her blog a couple of days ago and I’ll break the silence today. We’re both flying back to Albuquerque this week to see our mother who is now in hospice care with late-stage ovarian cancer.
v for vendetta, p for prairie dog
He just sat there, licking his chops, clearly savoring the look of fear on my face and wanting to get maximum mileage out of it before making his next move.
chicago seen through cheesehead glasses
Us Chicago natives are weaned from an early age to become architecture snobs, with aesthetic critiques of the playground equipment not uncommon by the age of five--so my words should be taken with some grains of salt. But the bottom line is that I was saddened to see the old Maxwell Street neighborhood go. Certainly it needed sprucing up and cleaning up, but I think it could have done without losing the essence of what the neighborhood was about. What had landed here was something completely different.
today begins the 40th year of the rest of my life (that does not mean i’m forty, though)
So yeah, I have a thing for sevens, but to the best of my knowledge I’m not mentioned in any prophecy (unlike my next-door neighbor, “Number 6”). If there’s a mark on my forehead, it’s probably a zit.
an “administrative professionals day” story, starring jimmy stewart
Today is Administrative Professionals’ Day, a day in which secretaries, clerical workers and other office support staff are recognized and given special appreciation. The very title of this day makes it sound about as exciting as fanfold computer paper or office ceiling title. But believe it or not, I have an Administrative Professionals’ Day story that I would consider to be as heartwarming as any Christmas story or Jimmy Stewart movie.
the gift of living in the present
For me, reading this chapter that one morning produced a rather profound shift in my thinking. I had been carrying a lot of anger and self-judgment about my current situation, and in almost an instant, most of it disappeared. I got off the bus suddenly feeling a lot lighter about my situation than when I’d gotten on the bus.
pop go the bullet points
I've looked back at my first four entries in this journal and realize that I can be quite wordy. Which makes sense because that's how I speak as well. I tend to paint pictures with my words, leaving no corner of the canvas untouched. Over the course of many years, I've discovered that my speaking style produces two possible reactions in people 1) intrigued interest, or 2) a desire to tear the eyeballs out of one's own head. There seems to be no in-between.