Many of us will spend Mother’s Day remembering mom. How you remember her depends on your perspective and how you shape your memories. Do you feel your glass is half empty or half full? While there are facets of our lives for which we lack control, we do have the ability to choose how we view our past and it’s up to us whether we make peace with it.

 

My glass is half full and so are my memories. I find the older I get, the more I focus on the positive. I not only…

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Funeral and memorial services can be “by the book” with very little personal input or take-aways for friends and family, but, increasingly, eulogies may include some pointers on moving forward.

 

Here are some examples of how obituaries and memorial services speak to us and what we can learn.

 

Be an organ donor!

A celebration for the life of …

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Journalists are great carriers and receivers of information – particularly when it comes to news about each other. We tend to stick together. Facebook has made that even easier to trade information, tidbits, blog postings and personal news whether happy or sad.



Last fall, one of my former colleagues at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution died – a single mom leaving a 10-year-old adopted…

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As Mother’s Day approaches, there are lots of children, mothers, sisters, spouses who are missing a woman who meant everything to them. Everything. In many cases, their obituaries probably did not reflect enough about them – their core being – to really illustrate the impact of their lives or the voids they left.



Unfortunately, as the cycle of life proves over and over, there are also…

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Each year, as July 25 rolls around, my husband and I begin planning how we are going to celebrate my mother’s birthday with a lobster dinner. In Virginia, my sister does the same thing as does my brother in South Carolina.



Why lobster? Because no one we’ve ever known before or since could pick a lobster cleaner than Suzanne “Hebe” Moeller Soper. She perfected handling of lobster “crackers” and picks to get any and every edible morsel out of the shell. Out of each skinny leg… Continue

Some people call it rest, some call it taking a five or ten, some even call it taking a nap, but when the rubber hits the road it’s really a quiet moment with you. Such a moment allows your body to get some comfort time.

 

Okay, you say it was God who blessed you with the working ability, but your struggle is taking a moment for you. If that’s the case with you, here are some helpful hints.

 

 

1: Never let someone else be the one to say when for…

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Mother’s can’t deny it: motherhood is truly a satisfying role and many women have said that this is the best job in the world. However, many ambitious, working, entrepreneurial mothers do feel disconnected from their dreams, as they are often overshadowed my maternal obligations and duties. When a mother’s life starts to just become all about her family and children, she loses sight of her own passions and dreams.

          Nonetheless, a mom who knows how to follow her dreams and…

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As Mother’s Day approaches each year, I begin to hear my mother’s voice. It’s hovering, haunting – cajoling, reminding, prodding. It’s not particularly loving or sweet or nurturing. In fact, it’s pretty direct. Truth be told, it’s constructive criticism – not always welcome but determined to put me on the right path to adulthood.



"Stand up straight,” she would say, echoing what her mother drummed into her. And she absolutely did have me and my sister parading…

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Right on the stiletto heels of spring, eye-popping and heady heights of color and bounce – here comes Mother’s Day!



But for those of us without our mothers, even if you are one, it can feel more like a flat-footed event – particularly as Mother’s Day has gained commercial and emotional momentum over the years.



When my mother died, in 1968 at age 45, Mother’s Day was noted with breakfast in bed or by taking some special chores off her plate or by planting a…

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During my siblings’ annual New Year’s Eve celebration in Bluffton, S.C. several years ago, my brother, Mike, pulled out a tattered, red spiral notebook he had discovered in a box. The distinctive handwriting was unmistakable – our mother’s script, written in a sort of back-slanted, left-handed style unlike any other. The pages were filled with her thoughts, life lessons and musings written about a year before she died at age 45.

 

My sister Wendy took the notebook…

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My mother’s birthday was July 25. She would have been 87, hard for me to even imagine as she died at age 45 in 1968 – 42 years ago. A whole lifetime ago. So many culture changes ago. So many upheavals ago – none of them, however, as devastating as losing a mother at a young age.



As my avocation is reading and writing obituaries, wanting to always know more about what makes people tick – even when they are no longer ticking – I’ve been thinking about how her…

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