Love must begin with respect. Two people cannot move forward merely tolerating each other’s differences and looking down on each other as ignorant idiots who can’t see past the noses on your faces. No relationship can survive that. Neither can a country. There must be mutual respect for the genuine value that others bring to…
Tag: love
It’s Enough
Mother’s Day posts are often a litany of the expectations mothers try and fail to live up to every day. Most mothers I know don’t set out to be heroes—I know mine didn’t (but she was one anyway). Most of us simply set out to survive. Two of my babies are mothers now. They’re deep…
Watch
Love someone and watch them grow beautiful.
Too Much
To some, you’re too old to understand how things are. Too young to remember how things were. Too experienced to be innocent. Too innocent to have half a clue. Too educated to be in touch with reality. Too uneducated to comprehend the complexity. Too left to be right. Too right to care. Here’s to those…
From the Outside
One game a parent will never win is painting the other parent out in a negative light—to anyone. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing more detrimental to children than lack of mutual respect and a driving battle for control between parents, regardless of whether they’re together. False humility and the inability to value each other’s contributions hurts…
Near and Far
If you don’t love the people near to you, you don’t love the people far from you.
Anniversary
My husband and I are staring down our 30th anniversary. Things we’ve learned… Listen more than you speak. Give more than you take. Smile more than you frown. Manage thoughts and expectations (mostly your own). Recognize the value in each other and speak of it often to others. Acknowledge the probability that others are giving…
Still Never Fails
Love never fails. That eternal, profound realization hit me long ago when my kids were small and I was still struggling just to keep my patience. How incredibly all-consuming and eternal. It extends universes beyond human politics, philosophies and bottom lines. It has no geographical limits or borders. It has continued to hold me accountable…
Be One
Never begrudge the ups and downs, the goods and bads, the in-betweens. The best present in life is someone who stays. Those who don’t have one can be one. 💞 “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Between Snores
Mark and I slept curled up together on a single-sized bench bed in my mother’s hospital room last night. We were up and down quite a bit with her in the night and fell into a deep sleep by morning when things finally settled down. Between snores, he murmured, “You know what this means, right?”…
Teach Them
Teach your children to value the people in their lives. The people who came before them. The people who taught them. The people whose blood runs through their veins. The people who invested in them, even from a distance. If you teach your children to value only people exactly like you—exactly like them—you raise narcissists….
Fragmentary Life 