Saying these words aloud would change the children’s lives.
Here and now, I can do something that will make a difference in someone’s life, and perhaps that – the simple act of helping someone else – will help me in my own.
Can you let yourself jump without a net? Because that’s what love is, what faith is. You’re looking for a guarantee, and those come with auto parts. Not love.
God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December. – JAMES M. BARRIE.
The pain of him leaving kept expanding inside of her, taking up more and more space.
Two choices: ask for honesty and try to roll with unwanted truths or stick your head in the sand and be lied to.
Leni looked around. The beauty of this place, the majesty of it, was overwhelming. A deep and abiding peace existed here; there were no human voices, no thumping footsteps, no laughter or engines running. The natural world spoke loudest here, the breathing of the tide across the rocks, the slap of water on the float plane’s pontoons, the distant barking of sea lions lumped together on a rock, being circled by chattering gulls.
It was strange how you could stop seeing people who were right beside you, how images stuck in your head.
Both were trying in their way to hold on to the day, to really celebrate his birthday, and afterward, when Meredith lay in her lonely bed, she began what she knew would be a new life habit: talking to her dad in the quiet times. She couldn’t get advice from him, perhaps, but somehow just saying the words aloud helped.
Maybe it had all happened the way it needed to, maybe they’d each crossed their own oceans -hers of damaged love and loss, his of pain- to be here again together, where they belonged.
You know what else is forever?” “Dirty diapers.” Kate reached out for Tully’s hand, noticing how cold her friend’s skin was. How could she convince Tully that this was the Y in their lives, the inevitable separation, but not an abandonment? “Us,” she said pointedly. “We’ll be friends through jobs and kids and marriages.” She grinned. “I’m sure I’ll outlast several of your husbands.
Mama wanted to induct Leni into some terrible, silent club to which Leni didn’t want to belong. She didn’t want to pretend what had happened was normal, but what was she – a kid – supposed to do about it?
He renamed her, just like that, turned her into a different woman.
She was mad at the world, and somehow that meant she was mad at her mom most of all.
Tully shook her head. “Marah, your mother loves you no matter what and she’s proud of you. Believe me, princess, that’s the coolest thing in the world.
Time heals all wounds, people told her, underscoring its essential kindness. She knew in fact that some wounds deepened over time instead of lessened;.
Now she knew better, of course. For more than a year she’d been telling herself it was okay, that she could go on without a best friend. Sometimes she even believed it.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. – FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.
How was it possible that Elsa was close enough to her husband that she could feel the heat coming off him and smell the whiskey and cigarettes on his breath and still feel as if an ocean sloshed between them?
They both understood; every at-home mom in the world understood. Ultimately there were prices to be paid for the choices a woman made.