Category: families
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Just be “nice”
I never have liked the word “nice.” Somehow, it always seems a bit trite, but the word is packed with a lot of information. That’s why I like this quote by anonymous. “Treat everyone with kindness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are nice but because you are.” –Joy
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Remember kindness
I sometimes have to remind myself that I can be kind to everyone. “Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not,” Henry James once said. –Joy
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Endless pools of unknowability
In her book Oh, William!, Elizabeth Strout writes about William and Lucy, who used to be married to each other. An NPR interviewer commented, “Lucy and William knew each other very well, but they didn’t know each other as well as they thought they did. “Has you ever experienced this?” “Yes, I have,” Strout answered,…
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We are mysteries
In her book Oh, William!, Elizabeth Strout writes about William and Lucy—and about knowing and not knowing—other people and ourselves, too. At the end of the book, Strout concludes: But when I think Oh William!, don’t I mean Oh Lucy! too. Don’t I mean Oh Everyone, O dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we…
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Food and families
We have been cooking—my sister-in-law Barbie’s toffee, my husband’s father’s fudge, my grandmother Margaret Jackson’s soft raisin cookies. Christmas is a time for families—those who will be with us during the holiday and those who live still in our hearts. –Joy
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Wonderful, not perfect
“I want this Christmas to be perfect,” I told my husband this morning. Last year, Jerry and I spent Christmas with just the two of us. This year, our two children with be home—and each will bring a spouse for the first time. “It won’t be perfect,” Jerry told me, laughing. “But, it will be…
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Be thankful
I am thankful for pecan pie and mashed potatoes—and, most of all, I’m thankful that my daughter and her husband will be here for Thanksgiving—and my daughter and son and both of their spouses will be here for Christmas. As Shakespeare said, “O, Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.”…
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Pay attention
I have always liked these words from poet Mary Oliver. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. –Joy
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The dreams of a grandmother
Big Nancy—the mother of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi—wanted to go to law school. In fact, when three of her children were in school and she had only two at home, she enrolled in law school. However, when several of her sons developed whooping cough—a dangerous disease at the time, her dream ended. Nancy…
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Pay attention
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” philosopher Simone Weil once said.