Family

The process of ending a marriage, especially a decades-long one, can definitely shake up your life in all aspects. From the financial to the emotional, there are many unexpected good lessons that divorce in later-life…

By the time we reach our 60s, most of us have quietly rewritten a lot of our life’s plans – careers that took different turns, health that doesn’t cooperate the way it used to, friendships that faded. Family is often the last picture we’re still holding onto exactly as we first imagined it.

I should have known my boys were nature smart long before I had a name for it. When they were little, our house looked a lot like the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Their pockets were never empty. Rocks. Sticks. Acorns. Milkweed pods. Feathers. Pinecones. Eggshells. Seeds…

I recently found myself as the “loving” companion to my brother and husband for two separate medical procedures. I’m happy to say there has been a long hiatus for this kind of caretaking, because the first episode, about five years ago, was quite an eye opener. At that time, I was more focused on surviving the quirky US healthcare system and locating the best offerings in my local area…

When Leo arrived at my house, he wasn’t supposed to stay. He was a foster kitten. The plan was simple: to give him a safe place to land, help him get settled, and eventually find him a permanent home. Leo had other plans. From the beginning, he carried himslef with an unusual degree of confidence…

There once was a clan of the Flibberty Flocks, Who polished their smiles and synchronized clocks. They ironed their curtains, they color-matched stew, And claimed that perfection was simply “what’s due.”

It’s his life, not yours… Thattechnically true sentence is kind of useless emotionally. Parents of unhappy adults live with a silent grief and unlike in other distressing situations, there are no rituals or support for the heartbreak of watching an adult child struggle. Even though it remains difficult as well, we’re not talking here about an adult who’s going through a rough patch, a breakup, a job loss, a burnout…

Have you ever needed to provide temporary housing to your adult children? Living in a full house can be a wonderful experience and also a very challenging time…

If you’re over 60 and finding yourself grieving a relationship with your adult child that technically hasn’t ended – no fight, no falling out, just… distance – you are far from alone, and there’s a reason this particular grief is so disorienting. Most griefs we’re taught to recognize have a clear beginning: a death, a diagnosis, a divorce papers signed. This one doesn’t…

Parents know (or hope) the day will come when they look at their children and realize they’ve become self-sufficient adults. Not just legally adults, but functioning adults. The kind who pay their own bills, solve their own problems, make their own appointments, and call home because they want to – not because they need something or someone to rescue them…