In many conversations over the past three weeks, I have felt the need and the responsibility to be hopeful, and to share messages of hope with others. This caused me to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about hope and exploring its power relative to one of my favorite topics – love. At the beginning of this exploration, hope seemed more ephemeral than love, more like a flickering flame that, when the wind blew, …
True forgiveness is like a rainbow – a rare and beautiful gift, precious and elusive. As a child, I was often told that it was important to “forgive and forget.” No one explained that the step of forgetting – of letting go of our hurt and pain – may be even more important than the act of forgiving. I understand that now that it is. I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness and when …
I woke from a dream about my Dad this morning. He looked exactly as he did in the weeks before his death eighteen months ago. He looked tired. When I was fully awake, I knew (again) that he was gone and I sobbed. I miss my Dad – the Dad who had been a superhero, as my Mom had been, throughout my life. Crying seemed the only way to release the sadness, so I cried. I used to think that …
It is usually (but not always!) easier to choose love over anger, fear, frustration or other emotions when we are interacting with people we deeply love. This is especially true when we have reached a level of unconditional love, of loving someone without expectation. I cannot claim to love everyone this way, but I am committed to this goal. Each day, I become more aware of how choosing love improves all of the experiences of my day-to-day …
Catherine Lafferty D’Agostino was not afraid to die. When she was twelve years old, she sat at the bedside of a woman who was dying. The woman lived alone, so her neighbors took turns sitting by her bed and waiting with her until she was ready to release her final breath. Catherine’s mother had another commitment that afternoon, so she sent her daughter to keep the vigil in her place. Catherine sat alone and watched over the dying …
I believe in the healing power of love, in the transformation created in our lives when we allow ourselves to give and receive love with our hearts wide, wide open. Life events this year have led me to examine more closely the various aspects of love, and to feel love even more intensely. In the process, I have been exploring forgiveness, an aspect of unconditional love that is sometimes overlooked. We may lose sight of …
Our Dad truly was a superhero and when he crossed from this life into the afterlife, he left an unimaginable void in our lives. He left us many weeks before his actual death in April, experiencing what his doctor called “degenerative dementia.” So in the end we had a medical term for what had happened to Dad, though what we really wanted was a reason. There was no reason, but in an odd twist of …
