Still thinking about love (by Nina)
Well, it's still February, and I'm still thinking about love – for my family, my friends, my dog, Carmen and the white-capped mountains I can see from my office window (if I crane my neck about 180 degrees). I think about all the people in Iraq who die every day. And their families – each member forever feeling a hole in their heart – for a lost mother, father, spouse, partner, sister, brother, son, daughter, grandchild, or platoon buddy. I look around and see the love and family strength available to get through these hard times, large scale or small. And I am always amazed.
What else helps? In addition to the sustaining force inherent in us mothers, I think laughter, jokes and great quotes are animated cousins, rearranging our pain and providing personal enjoyment and emotional relief. Here are a few quotes I really like. I hope you will too.
BIRTH
"Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head." - Carol Burnett
MOMS
"Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face." – George Eliot, English novelist
"The strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws." – Barbara Kingsolver
"She was the archetypal selfless mother: living only for her children, sheltering them from the consequences of their actions -- and in the end doing them irreparable harm." – Marcia Muller
"We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
PERKS OF RAISING CHALLENGING CHILDREN
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." – M. Scott Peck
ISOLATION, NO -- CONNECTIONS, YES
"Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone" – Maya Angelou
"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." – C.S. Lewis
"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that." – Charlotte, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
HOPE
"I still believe in Hope - mostly because there's no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas." – Molly Ivans, syndicated political columnist who recently died.
Molly was a woman with a keen wit, a gracious heart and an exquisite ability to make sense of the absurd through her writing and public speaking. I will miss her.
