Holidays

I am going to my son's for the holidays. I am looking forward to spending some quiet, quality time there. We have no plans and are not exchanging gifts. We decided the only presents that were allowed are things for the baby that they're expecting in March.

I feel grateful that I am not in the throws of the situation many people find themselves in during the holiday season. Bustling, rushing around spending money (often that you don't have), anticipating getting together with family members that are difficult, eating too much, drinking too much--all of these things sound dreadful. Yet, many people are going into the season with these things looming.

One of the most difficult things about the holidays are expectations. If we have experienced the magic of the holidays as children it is particularly dangerous. We go into the season now with our hearts set on things being the way they were and WHAM! everything is different. As adults we can end up feeling like disappointed children and totally miss the wonder.

Another danger of feeling like children happens when we are around our families. If we are around our family of origin we are, in fact, children even though we are now adults. That doesn't stop the dynamics that are so familiar. Sometimes these dynamics throw us out of balance and this can bring with it disastrous feelings and behaviors.

It is important to stay in the present and keep an open heart regardless of who you are with. This is one time of the year that everyone is a little stressed and many are depressed. Knowing this and staying steady with yourself while allowing others to be where they are keeps you from falling into their abyss.

Having faith and understanding the true meaning of the holidays makes all the difference. That makes giving and being compassionate toward others the purpose. Giving from the heart without expectations is a profound experience. When you give from an open heart, the love comes back a thousand fold.

My wish would be that everyone could feel loved and cared about during the holidays.

Moms Know It All

My son and his wife just left this morning after staying with me for a holiday visit. I enjoyed their company immensely and had a wonderful time catching up and just being together. The challenge for me was to "see" things that were happening with them individually and together that were not heading in a good direction. The struggle was to hold my tongue and simply be supportive.

I am a good listener. After twenty-five years as a psychotherapist I have become quick at seeing what is going wrong in people's lives and knowing how to support looking at the situations in new ways to bring awareness to new ways of thinking. It isn't telling someone what to do and trying to change them to meet my opinion. It is more opening up options and creating possibilities for change in places in their lives that are not working.

Family and friends have totally different rules and the boundaries needed to stay very clear. For instance, it is off limits for me to use my "bag of psychotheraputic solutions" on those close to me. That creates an emotional conundrum when the person in question is your son. This is intensely difficult.

It is interesting to see my son's values and beliefs now that he is an adult. Some of them are ones I adhere to and share and others I don't know where he got. Some of it is his sense of himself and his self definition at this time. Some of it is just being young and not knowing himself as well as he will as he matures and goes through things in his life that will teach him lessons.

What Mother wants their children to have to learn lessons that might hurt them? No matter how old their child is, the impulse is the same as it was when they were little. Especially if you can see how a course of events is lining up like a freight train. Then it takes all of my energy and attention to stay quiet and let things play out.

Fortunately, I had an excellent model for this. My good friend and "chosen" Mother is an expert at listening and saying nothing. She is incredibly supportive but will not tell you what you are doing wrong or what the consequences might be if you continue in the current direction. She is inspiring and has become my mentor in this issue. I just have to think about what she would do and say, and I am able to stop myself from interfering.

The truth is, I don't even know if my observations are correct. Being close to someone scrambles perception. The issue is really trusting that you have done everything you can do to raise your child in the best way you knew how. Now it is time to trust what you have given them and trust that they will make good choices or know how to rectify situations as they arrive.

I do trust my son, possibly more that any other person on this planet. It is just that "Mom Knows It All" gene that kicks in and makes me want to intervene so my son won't get hurt. I feel that that impulse as a healthy one. The big issue is keeping quiet and letting things play out.

If I am asked my opinion about something, then I must find a way to be honest while not driving the bus with what I think. Again listening is the main tool for this. Being supportive doesn't mean being passive, because this doesn't help either.

This is my lesson to work on. When you have a child you have no idea all the lessons that will be presented to you, especially the ones you don't know how to handle. And it doesn't stop. My son is 30 and I am still having to consider and make mistakes and get my thinking straightened out. I consider it a lesson of love and am going to do everything in my power to get it right.

Being a Grandmother

I'm going to be a Grandmother. My son and his wife are having a baby girl in March. I've never thought about what it would be like to be a Grandmother, but now I am getting excited!

My own grandmother (my mother's mother) was not very accessible. She was pretty shut down around us kids and never related one on one. Even when I worked alone with her in her gardens she didn't say much. She just mostly told me when I had done something wrong. She wasn't a very good model of what I imagined a Grandmother could be.

Her older sister, my great aunt Leonie, was much more what I wanted. She was always happy to see me and would drop everything to be with me. We would cook together, I would watch her wash her hair, we would peel apples to see how much we could keep together before breaking the chain, we sat on her porch swing and sang songs, we took little buckets of water and sat in her driveway washing little rocks and seeing them sparkle.

It didn't seem to matter if I was alone with her or if my other siblings or neighborhood kids were there. I still felt totally loved and accepted. When other kids were around we would put puzzles together, play solitaire, and when her cuckoo clock was about to chime we would all run in and watch the little people come out to tell the time.

My own mother was a wonderful Grandmother. She seemed to transform into another person around her grandchildren. While she was a difficult and complicated Mother, she was fun, connected and mesmerizing as a Grandmother. Her grandchildren adored her until her untimely death when the oldest grandchild was 7.

I have been watching my sister closely with her 2 year old granddaughter. She is great with her. She has the patience of a saint, gets down and plays, snuggles while reading books and generally is so loving it's awesome to be around.

All my friends who have grandchildren say it is the BEST! The love for their grand babies seems to be totally unconditional. They say you don't discipline them the same way you did your own children because it isn't your job. You can just love and enjoy the kids. And then, there is always that knowing that they will be going home to their own parents.

I don't know how I'll do as a Grandmother. I don't live in the vicinity of my son, so that makes it more difficult to be a constant in his child's life. I want to be everything all of my good models have shown me. I want to be loving, fun, steady and dependable, delighted, present and compassionate. I think those things will just come naturally as it is how I feel.

I cannot express my joy at becoming a Grandmother. I think I can make a good one. I know as each month passes and it gets closer and closer to the birth, my excitement grows. I cannot wait to hold her and watch my son and his wife as parents. They are going to be great parents. I want to be a wonderful Grandmother. The odds are good.

My Favorite Place To Be

I have a very unusual relationship with my sister. She knows what I am thinking without my even saying a word. Now, that might be disconcerting to some people, but I love it.

When we are out shopping, I know just what she would like. And, she, in the same way, knows my preferences to a tee. It's the same with people. We just seem to pick up the same things about people. We talk about it later and have the same perceptions. It is uncanny.

We also have the same taste. We can walk into each other's homes and find the same things. Sometimes it feels amazing that we can know from several thousand miles away just what the other has. It makes it easy to give each other gifts.

When we were growing up we didn't appreciate our "gift". We were so so different. She loved to stay inside and create doll clothes. You would find me hanging out of a tree or playing baseball with the neighborhood boys. We felt about as different from one another as you could possibly get.

She would always give me "the look" if we were around something that we were both perceiving. In retrospect, I guess this was my first clue that we were on the same page. She would also give me "the look" when I did something that offended her--like running around without a shirt when we were very small.

I don't know exactly when she became my best friend. I think we might have been in our forty's. It just snuck up on us. It wasn't anything that we were trying for, or anything we could have imagined. It probably happened gradually. Since we have lived in different parts of the country and didn't see each other that often it was more difficult to detect.

Now, though, she is my safe place. She is my favorite place to be. I

am glad to have someone who knows me, sometimes better than myself. I can trust her to be honest with me about everything. She is the first person I turn to whether it's good or bad. And, she is always right there. Solid. Present to me. Loving me to the max.

I am lucky and I know it. She is the greatest blessing in my life and I am glad now when we can spend time together. It is the most comfortable thing in the world.

Plants For The Soul

There are over fifty pots of flowers in our front yard. I know. I just watered them. There are 5 Gerbera Daises (none of them currently blooming), many geraniums, spider plants (whose babies I planted yesterday) and everything that likes hot, hot, hot. It is an oasis in the desert.

It isn't so much my love for the plants that embarrasses me. It is my deep attachment that makes me feel exposed and that I hesitate to admit.

I have felt these feelings since before I can remember. My first conscious awareness of plant attachment was watching my father turn hollyhocks into dolls. Unlike my sister, it wasn't the doll that fascinated me but the plant.

I began to get more and more involved. First it was being allowed to water my father's tomato plants. I took on the responsibility perhaps much too seriously for a 6 year old.

By the time I was 8 my own vegetables were Champions at the County and State Fairs. 4-H gave me a place to shine. I also at this time had an enormous strawberry bed and a zinnia farm. At least, that's how I thought of it.

My mother and father had minimal interest in gardening, growing fruit trees, or yard work in general. My maternal grandmother, however, was a different story entirely. She lived for her gardens and now I know they fed her soul.

I eased my way into working with her when my big brother went to college. I was 9 years old. I was given the job of mowing my grandparent's yard. This was no small yard. There was a steep bank across the entire front yard, lots of flower gardens in the back of the house including a peonie garden, two huge vegetable gardens behind the garage, an iris bed, a chicken yard and an large orchard.

My grandmother gave me 50 cents a week for cutting it. My grandfather would come home from lunch, see me working and say, "what did you go and do? Shave it?". And then he would give me 50 cents with the clear understanding that we would not tell Grandma.

I was passionate about how the yard looked and painstakingly trimmed around everything by hand. It usually took me two days to finish the job to my standards. This gave me the chance to watch my grandmother work with her flowers. She wasn't willing to teach me outright--but she couldn't keep me from watching. I learned, among other things, how to weed, trim, plant, transplant, divide bulbs, prepare soil, water and lots of things I can't now remember.

My grandmother was silent most of the time and gave me no indication of what she was feeling. I was an overly-sensitive kid who could read everybody but her. Maybe that's why I worked so hard to please her. She just acted as if I had merely met her expectations. I needed some feedback which I began to get by taking care of the yard over the entire summer.

Every place I have lived has pulled me to planting both inside and out. Taking care of plants nurtures me at a deep level and brings to life something in me more than anything else. I maybe don't feel embarrassed about it as much as protective. I have moved many times and have had to leave many "plant" friends behind. It makes sense to keep my love and affection for them to myself.

I'm writing this while sitting on the porch swing surrounded by all the plants. Each one my eyes fall upon brings me a different delight. I have made the decision to tell the world about my attachment to plants. It is about sharing my life lesson about letting go of the old and opening to the new. My soul softly speaks.

BARKING DOG

What goes on in a dog's head? My fourteen-year-old dog, Ladybug, has developed an obsession. Whenever the man who lives in the kennel starts to come toward the house she starts barking. I don't think she sees or hears him. I think she "senses" him.

The barking continues until he has left the house and returned to the kennel. I have wondered if she feels he is some sort of threat and has to protect me. That theory got nixed yesterday when she was barking in a completely different part of the house from where I was. She may feel threatened for her own safety, though.

It feels like she is terrified and scared by the look in her eyes. I try to comfort her by getting her to come to me and then I pet her and hold her close. This only briefly calms her down and then she starts barking again.

The best thing I have found that helps is to put her outside when I see him coming this way. Of course, this only works if I see him first. Otherwise, she is off and barking.

My roommate, who has trained dogs for years, has tried and suggested many techniques to get the barking to stop to no avail. I had to put my foot down when she started yelling, "shut up" and tried to hit her with a magazine. I also said "no" to loud unexpected noises. No point in scaring her more than she already is.

Last night the man came in where Ladybug and I were. She started barking and he loudly, violently slammed a door and said, "I'm getting really sick of that dog!".

Obviously, he hates her and she is responding to that. He is personally miserable and negative about everything in his life and it feels like a dark hole when he is in the house. I'm sure Ladybug feels that.

What is going on in her brain? I say she is just responding to his ugly, hateful attitude about his life in general and his anger at her in particular. Ladybug doesn't deserve to be punished or picked on. I don't deserve to be told I don't have my dog under control. We are doing everything we can. The man is equally an annoyance to us as we are to him. In fact, the truth is, if I was being honest I would bark too!

What Do You Do When The Desert Gets Hot?

I am living in the Sonora Desert in Southern Arizona. I am not a native. In fact, my preference includes 4 seasons, dark rich earth, mountains, and water. I have watched carefully over the past few years at the patterns and influences the heat has on life here and my reaction to it.

Now don't get me wrong. The winters, as all the snowbirds will attest to, are GREAT here. There is no snow or unbearable cold temperatures to contend with. Every day in the winter is sunny. Fall, which includes October and November, and Spring, March and April, are also lovely and my actual favorites. It is May, June, July, August and September that I am talking about. They are the months that create the challenge.

This May has been unusually windy here. The temperature has been slowly creeping up into the high 90's. It is very, very dry. You have to put lotion on your skin several times a day because of the dryness, suntan lotion because of the sun and chap stick is a must for both reasons. To the natives way of thinking, we are just now heading into summer.

June is generally the most oppressive month. As the temperature continues to rise, the earth heats up more and more. It becomes too hot to comfortably spend time outside and staying inside is stuffy and "close" and almost claustrophobic.

In July the earth is hot enough for the monsoons to start. The sky will be dark and you can see rain falling out of the sky in one place and right next to that, it can be perfectly dry and sunny. This can be beautiful and is incredibly unusual.

Did I mention that July, August and September were hot? There can easily be a run of over a hundred degree days, one after the other. It doesn't seem quite as oppressive as June, though, because the monsoons cool things off.

During the summer, besides the heat, I have a difficult time dealing with watching out for rattle snakes, insects, scorpions, killer bees, tarantulas and Colorado river toads. Having to be diligent about staying away from these creatures every minute you are outside doesn't allow for relaxing and enjoy the outdoors. I don't like that!

The dry heat is very difficult on the body. The sun is very close here and even with "high" number suntan lotion, it is easy for the skin to burn. The high temperature is difficult to take and you can only be out in it for a little while comfortably before you have to go back inside.

I realize this might be sounding like I am complaining. Maybe I am a little. I can understand why people want to spend their winters down here and summers up north. But, if you happen to be in the desert for the entire year, you need to find some summertime indoor activities. I'm going to go now and curl up with a good book...

Stillness

I am being given the opportunity to be still and the chance to stay in the "now". I am in bed, healing from hip replacement surgery that I had two weeks ago. I get up from time to time, so I'm not always lying bed, so it wouldn't appear that I am always still. Yet, I am learning, Stillness is an inner process. Stillness is a spiritual practice. Stillness is an Art.

The hip accident happened two and a half years ago. This was a time in my life that was the antithesis of stillness. My entire attention was outside myself. My inner feelings were buried deep inside and I was being distracted by a flurry of activity that kept me busy and outwardly-focused.

The pickup was filled to the brim with garbage and we were on our way to the dump. A strong wind blew the truck nearly off the road. When we got to where the garbage was to be unloaded, we were on top of a mountain where the wind almost blew us over.

Half-way down the garbage we picked up a sheet of plywood and I grabbed the front with my right hand, the top with my left--thinking that my partner had done the same on the other side. Just then the wind shot a blast of wind and caught the board. The next thing I knew, I was being picked up backwards and thrown off the truck in slow motion. There was nothing I could do--the situation was totally out of my control.

I landed on my right hip with a loud "thud". It took me a few minutes to catch my breath and get my bearings. My response, because my focus was outside of myself was predictable: I got angry. I lifted the board off of me, denied help from the people gathered around who had seen the accident, got back up in the truck and finished unloading the garbage until it was gone.

I did go the doctor a few days after and was reassured that nothing was broken. Unfortunately, the fall started a hasty process of arthritis and degeneration of the hip. Within a half year, walking caused severe pain that only got relief from cortisone shots and daily over-the-counter medication.

Several months ago the doctor administering the shots sat me down and said it was time for surgery because the effectiveness of the shots had decreased too much. Ex rays taken by the surgeon validated a serious and quick decline. Bone on bone warranted time to have surgery.

I had surgery on April Fool's Day and was released from the hospital on Easter. After being home a week I began to embrace the healing process I was undergoing. I grasped and accepted the following: healing was going to be a gradual process toward rejuvenation instead of degeneration, the pain would gradually get better and I need to follow my pain-management plan so that I can achieve my physical therapy goals, I cannot avoid being in touch with my internal feelings, I am alone in bed spending many hours a day with myself and there is nothing to do but be with myself.

The first challenge of "being still" was differentiating between physical pain and internal feelings. After several weeks of learning this distinction, the main "feeling" that dominated my moment-to-moment existence was boredom.

Underneath the boredom was anger. This anger got in the way of my being still until I gave it my undivided attention and listened to what it had to say. It was furious to be dealing with this amount of pain. I didn't like the feeling of being old and being betrayed by my body. It didn't like doing nothing and just lying in bed. It didn't like being so exposed and vulnerable. It was afraid I won't get better.

Under the anger was a growing stillness. The more I listened to and acknowledged and moved out of the anger with love and reassurance, the more still I have become. With the stillness comes silence. I am, for the first time in my life, becoming fond of and comfortable with silence and stillness and "doing nothing". Within their realm is a huge space that is full, accepting and totally complete. It a simply being in the now with no past and no future. Stillness is the experience of the now in this moment.

There are many moments in the day that I spend in this space of Being with Stillness. I am actually becoming so fond of it that when it is broken and my attention is drawn outside of myself, I feel agitated. Being still is growing on me and feels like an Art.

Being still is also a spiritual practice. Being in the moment surpasses the physical plane. It also moves aside the external "noise" and activity and gives way to infernal experiences. This process feels like a paradox and is the height of self-discovery. Simple but moving, complex but still, experiences of life are transcended in these interwoven, juxtaposed feelings that are the soul's living in the now.

I am grateful to be given this time to practice and become more familiar with my spiritual life. I feel compassion and contentment spilling over where judgement and agitation with life used to be. I am happy to be learning about the inner process of being. I like being still.

Preparing for Surgery

No one likes to have surgery. That statement does not help me much as I am sitting in the "high chair" having my blood drawn for pre-op surgery. My eyes land on the bulletin board on the wall. It is filled with photographs of the technician's family. Little girls are chasing a balloon and an older boy is suiting up for what looks like his first football game. I try to distract myself and think this bulletin board is an excellent way to do it.

When I fell on my hip two years ago I didn't break it. It was an extremely windy day and we were at the dump with our little old Isuzu pickup filled to the brim with trash. We were standing in the back end throwing stuff off the truck. We had made it down to a fairly large piece of particle board. I grabbed one end and the top, my partner did the same. Just at that moment a huge gust of wind caught the board and whipped me into the air.

From that moment it all happened in slow motion. I was flying backwards off the side of the truck and heading down toward the ground. When I landed I felt it as a LOUD hard thump. To add insult to injury, the board fell on top of me. I immediately began to access my body. I had landed on my right hip and elbow. They hurt. For some reason my response was to feel angry and humiliated, although I don't know at what. I shook myself off and got back up in the truck and finished the job.

I held out until early in the week and then went in for some ex rays. Nothing was broken and I was told to rest and take ibuprofen. I spent the following weeks recovering, which seemed slow but I could tell there was gradual improvement so after a while stopped feeling concerned and got on with my life.

It wasn't even six months after the fall that I found my way to the orthopedic doctor because my hip was hurting. At first, I was sent to the back doctor to rule out if the pain was coming from my lower back. It wasn't. I let more time go on and then I was at the hip doctor again. After more ex rays it was determined that arthritis was deteriorating my hip bones. Could I stand the pain? At that time, yes, I could.

This last year was a different story, though. The pain started becoming constant and particularly bad when I walked. I noticed it the most when I was trying to make it from one plane to another in airports. There was no denial. Something had to be done. I went back to the hip doctor. This time he recommended that I get a cortisone shot in my hip. Didn't sound like something I would normally want to do but I found myself gladly agreeing to it.

The shot was given in an outpatient setting where you went into a room filled with large machines. From the bed, the machines were especially intimidating. I focused on the TV screen where an ex ray was showing a picture of my body where the shot was going to go. I don't like shots so I quickly diverted my eyes and started thinking about what I was going to do after I left. It was over quickly and I had to stay in the waiting room a half hour before I was driven home.

The pain subsided considerably over the next few days and about the third day I was feeling pretty normal again. In fact, I felt so good that it was easy to forget that I was having trouble with my hip at all. It last about 6 weeks. Then the pain was back. I went to the doctor again. This scenario repeated I don't know how many times. I guess it was until the doctor giving me the cortisone shots sat me down and told me I needed to consider surgery.

I put off going to see the hip doctor until I could barely walk. He took another ex ray. The last one had been taken six months before this one and the bone had deteriorated measurably. Now the picture showed bone on bone. We both looked at each other and without saying a word, knew it was time.

Due to a wedding, a funeral and several trips, I picked the end of March as "the time". In early March I saw my primary physician to start the pre-op testing. This involved going to five different places for poking and prodding and I did not like it at all. Still, I knew what is coming will be much, much more challenging to deal with.

I feel anxious about the surgery. I don't want to have to deal with pain and don't feel very motivated to do all that I will need to do to recover as I want to. I know I will be diligent when it happens, it's just thinking about it from my anxiety-point-of-view that feels unmotivated. Sometimes I think that since I scheduled it, it must be selective surgery. And then I walk a few steps and remember quickly, that is not the case.

I feel betrayed by my body. I wasn't supposed to have to deal with something like this! Having always been strong, active and athletic, it never occurred to me that I would need a hip replacement. Now I am fighting with myself: berating myself for lifting such heavy things and doing so much work in my life. And giving myself grief for falling off that truck. I find myself needing to curb my anger at myself and recognize that I am just afraid of the surgery.

I don't know of any formula or way of thinking that would make waiting for surgery any easier. I know I will be in good hands, I know I will make it through, and I know that my hip will be so much better without all the pain. And I know no one likes surgery. Especially ME!

LOST DOG

I knew as soon as I entered the house my dog was gone. She did not come to greet me in her usual happy way. The house was silent with a kind of eerie emptiness. I went from room to room calling out "Ladybug! Ladybug!" in more and more frantic tones as my anxiety level shot through the roof and my heart raced.

The Golden Retriever who was visiting ran out to greet her owners. I went out behind the house to where the man was who had been taking care of the dogs. He reported he had let Ladybug and the Golden out into the front yard and left them for an hour and a half unsupervised. He did not realize a gate was open. He had looked for Ladybug for a little while but decided that she would come to me better than him, so it could wait until I got home. I was furious but had to bring my attention back to my search.

Ladybug was nowhere to be found. I checked all the outside gates and fences and found nothing. We all walked the grounds around the house with flashlights and called and called for her. Eventually, we decided she was not here and we would have to wait and look for her in the morning. I didn't sleep a wink all night. My feelings spun through a painful cycle--panic, sadness and rage--all night long. With the first light of the morning I was out again looking for her again.

I live in the Sonoran Desert in Southern Arizona. We have almost as many coyotes as cactus. Ladybug had spent 13 1/2 years totally protected and was neither "worldly" or "desert-wise". Add to that she is a small Tibetan Spaniel and a light golden color, which shows up in the moonlight. I wasn't feeling very optimistic about her making it through this. The desert suddenly felt gigantic to me and the thought of finding her like looking for a needle in a haystack.

When calling her and looking around didn't produce any results, I went to the neighbors and asked them to be on the lookout. I called the animal shelters in the area and animal control. I looked on Craig's list and put in an add. Then I made up a flyer and drove around putting them up. The next day I went to all the shelters to look to see if she was there. It was very sad to see all the dogs and cats there but sadder still that there was no Ladybug.

That night I felt really defeated. It was her third night away and I was losing hope. I felt that I needed to start dealing with the possible reality that she might not ever come home. My grief for my other two Tibbies, Abracadabra and Arty, who had both died last year because of old age, made Ladybug's absence all the more unbearable. I was fighting with these feelings when I went to sleep.

When the phone rang the next morning I was feeling so defeated I almost missed it. A woman's voice said, "We have Ladybug. She won't come to us but we fed her and she is still sticking around." I dashed in the car the half mile down the road as a heavy rain came down. When I got there the woman said that Ladybug had just left. I began to call her. Then I saw her--wet to the bone--coming to me. The woman gave me a towel to dry her off and I swaddled her close. I couldn't hold it in anymore--big tears began to flow.

Grief is an intense experience that can lead us through a healing process which leaves us in a completely different mental, emotional and spiritual heart place. I believe the most challenging grief is when something happens to someone we love and they disappear. We are left not knowing what happened to them, if they are dead or alive, hurt or okay. Without information it is impossible to know what to do. The feeling of powerlessness is overwhelming.

For me, this whole experience was a spiritual process. It put me back in touch with how vulnerable life really is and reminded me about what is truly important. My little Ladybug has always had a very special place in my heart, made even stronger now that she is home.

Shannon's Wedding Toast

The wedding was at 3 p.m. I arrived in England three days early to help with the preparations. Now I was dressed in my "mother of the groom" dress sitting in a beautifully lit room waiting for the ceremony to begin. I remember every moment of it as if it were in slow motion even though in real time it was over in a blink. Photos were taken inside and then everyone went outside where a few inches of soft puffy snow blanketed the ground and changed colors in the sunset.

The reception was at a nearby pub. As I entered, I saw three long tables in the back just past the long wooden bar. People I didn't know were arriving, gathering and mingling. I made my way to some people I had met and tried to get my bearings. Now is when anxiety really began to rear its ugly head. There was no question that I had had a choice when I was asked if I wanted to give a toast to the bride and groom. My yes was immediate and strong. Now, though I was not so sure.

I had taken several months to let the toast "gel" in my mind. When I started writing it down, I wrote and re-wrote it many times, putting the final touches on it on the plane ride over. When I sent it out to a few friends I got the same response, "it made me cry. Don't change a thing".

The meal was a lamb dish which was the best I had ever tasted. It was fabulous! Still, the anxiety was dancing strongly in my stomach and I knew the time was growing closer to when it would be my turn to address this room full of virtual strangers. I had a lovely conversation with the bride's grandfather who was sitting next to me and that seemed to calm me down and distract me from my anxiety.

Then it was time for the toasts to start. The bride's father went first. His toast was fun, with amusing antidotes and stories that put everyone at ease and got many laughs as well as mixed responses from the bride and groom. When he got close to finishing, my hands began to shake and I had to take a minute and go inside and get centered. Then I was on. I stood up confidently doing what I always do when I am uncomfortable in a social situation: pretend like I am my extroverted sister who can instantly put people at ease.

I started into my toast with prompts from my written papers. It was going well. I got through the opening and even got a few laughs. Then I started into the body of the speech and suddenly I hit a wall. The happy sadness of the life I had had as a single mom with my son fell on me and I started to choke up, trying to hold the tears back. I was totally surprised, as I had read the speech through many times and this had not happened before. Somehow in the midst of the emotions of the wedding, my true feelings had unleashed.

I tried my best to get a grip and it took what seemed like an eternity before I could continue on to the end. When I got through and looked up, every person in the place had tears in their eyes. I had read in my "giving toasts book", which I had purchased as I started thinking about the toast, that a good toast was one where there was laughter and tears. I guess if that is a true gage of a good toast then I succeeded. I am going to share my toast following this introduction and hope that it touches you as well:

"I am Paula, Shannon’s mother. I am pleased to be able to say a few

things about Shannon so that you can relax and appreciate Kirstyn’s
good taste in men. I hope by knowing him a little more you can have a
mother’s unbiased glimpse of the potential of this marriage.

A story from his childhood says it all: When Shannon was 4 the people
that I worked for started a Waldorf School and offered Shannon a
scholarship to attend. As the year came to a close I asked Shannon
what he wanted to do during the summer. (Shannon always had a strong
sense about what he needed from the time he was very small) He said,
without hesitation, “I need to go back to my old nursery school
because all of my friends will be going to different kindergartens in
the fall and I need to spend time with them. So I enrolled him in
Walnut Street School. When I picked him up the first day his teachers
met me and informed me that Shannon had had a rough day. When I asked
why they said that the kids had been so excited about Shannon being
back. All morning they kept after him on who he liked better. By the
middle of the afternoon he had reached his breaking point so that when
some little girls wanted to know if he loved Cameron or Desmund or
Jennifer the best he turned around and yelled, “I love you all, each
for different reasons. But right now I’m just trying to learn to love
myself”.

As Shannon grew up he was a handful because he was so brilliant and
talented, compassionate, imaginative and inspiring, sweet and
sensitive. All I wanted to do was protect him. In spite of my lofty
mother wishes to make things easy, safe and happy for Shannon, I
couldn't always. Today, though, I couldn't be prouder. He is all of the
things he was as a little boy and he is a man that I have deep
respect for and greatly admire. And "I love you very much”.

To be honest, all I ever really wanted for Shannon was for him to be
happy. I experienced a taste of this happiness when he told me about
Kirstyn, when he first introduced us, and when I had a chance to be
around them. With Kirstyn by his side on their life journey I know he
will be the best he can be and will be very, very happy.

My wish to you both is that all your dreams come true, that you have
everything that you need and that you love each other tenderly
forever".

Having only one child, I will never have to give another toast--at least in that setting. I got over my embarrassment when a young man who works with my son told me he had never felt so much love in any speech before. That gave me pause for thought and got me out of myself to appreciate the authenticity of the words that came directly from my heart. Anxiety has no place when the truth is present. I am proud of my son, his wife and myself for making it through this rite of passage and am very, very glad it is over.