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The Voices in My Head
First of all, don’t panic. They’re good voices. Well… mostly. I still hear my late boyfriend all the time. For example, if I said I really, really liked something, he’d turn that into the best compliment ever. I might say, “This is really good tomato soup,” and he’d reply, “You’re my tomato soup of love.”…
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The Boy Who Gives Out Toys
Recently a friend of mine posted this video on her Facebook page. It is of a little boy who has lost both his parents, and one day he decided he was sick and tired of seeing everyone around him sad. So he bought a lot of tiny little toys, and started giving them out to…
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One Crabby Family
During one of my recent “weekends” (Oh, to actually have it fall on a weekend, for once, but nooooo…) I went with my first Seattle friend to visit her parents in Port Townsend, Washington. What a gorgeous place! I’ll write about it tomorrow. For today, I want to write more about what interested me the…
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The IDEA of You
I was talking to a friend the other day, and she said, “I don’t miss my mother. I miss the idea of my mother.” I could understand that completely. First of all, I got to know her mother before she passed away a decade ago, and the woman was as hard as nails. She’d say…
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Last Day
Late last year my favorite person in the whole world had a stroke. Ever since then she’s had several seizures, another stroke, and has been in and out of comas. When she did come to, she was completely confused, and, basically, “not there”. Although her body lingered on, I was already mourning the loss of…
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Don’t You Know Me?
I had the most distressing phone conversation the other day. I try to call my favorite aunt, who is 85 years old and lives in Connecticut, about once every two weeks. Her health is not good. She’s in constant pain, but she has a killer sense of humor and her mind is sharp as a…
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Fame
My friend Carole quoted a show called the Vampire Mob the other day. “We are all famous to a few people.” Now, I’ve never been a big follower of this whole vampire phenomenon, but it appears that pearls of wisdom can be found just about anywhere. This had me thinking about the concept of fame.…
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Love Never Dies
My mother would have been 87 years old today. When she passed away 23 years ago I thought I’d simply drift off into space. She had always been the one thing that kept me tethered to solid ground, figuratively speaking. Without her I felt as though I had been cast adrift, like a ship without…
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Mommy, Mommy Jokes
When I was young, Mommy Mommy jokes were all the rage. And while they were funny, I also found them rather disturbing because they were my first inkling that perhaps not all parents were thrilled with being parents. (I was lucky in that my mother never gave me that impression firsthand.) These jokes were also…
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Salting Pigeon’s Tails, and Other Games for Kids
My mother was one smart lady. She had three kids to keep busy and very little money to do it with, so she got creative. We would often pack up a picnic lunch and go to the nearest cemetery. My friends think this is nuts, but I remember these as being very fun times. When…