Everyone has a story about parents. Seriously!!!!

The picture is a photo of a painting our granddaughter Jackie gave me about four years ago. I look at it frequently and I’m reminded of this lovely and talented granddaughter who I hope will always love Jerry and me unconditionally.

Jackie is now 14, doing a summer internship at her Dad’s lighting company, and about to begin her freshman year at a school for gifted and talented. As I reflect upon these words that inspired Jackie when she saw it in a magazine, I am reminded of three of my much younger friends I lunched with a while back. Unfortunately, I only see these gals a couple of times a year, but I always love our brief time together. At our last meeting they gently chastised me for slacking off on blogging. When I told them I just wasn’t feeling inspired to write, they chimed in to give me food for thought. One talked about growing up with an alcoholic mother. The second talked about having a mom who had five husbands (a reminder of the Bible story of the woman at the well)! My third young friend shared how she was affected by her parents divorce as she was going into her teen years. The common thread I saw in all three lives was love, acceptance, and forgiveness toward their parents. These beautiful young women are successful, happy and well-adjusted. One would never know by looking at any of them the trauma they have experienced over the years. I wish these ladies would put their heads together and write a book about the challenges faced with difficult parents and the freedom that comes from forgiveness. Lessons we could all learn. Seriously!

4 Comments

  1. Carrie OConnor

    Charlotte – Thank you so much for the post. Love, acceptance and forgiveness is what we all need, to receive and to give. Thank you for the reminder!!

  2. Linda & Bob Schwartz

    I laughed when I read about the woman who had five husbands. My mom had four, and she would have married again had my
    sister and I allowed it. Our dad passed away at the young age
    of 43, and he was the love of my mom’s life. She didn’t remarry
    for several years, but when she did, she married a man with three children, and he wasn’t a very nice man. She ended up divorcing him after five years. Her third husband was a wonderful man whom she met at a wedding. They were married
    for 17 years
    man who was actually born on the same day and year as she was! That marriage lasted for 17 years, and her husband passed away from cancer. She got married again a few years
    later to a man who lived around the corner who had lost his
    wife. They were married for 5 years, and then he passed away.
    We started to call my mom the “Black Widow” because her
    husbands kept dying off! She began dating number 5, but by
    that time, she’d been diagnosed with cancer, so we moved her
    to Chicago so we could keep an eye on her. She lived with us
    for a short time, and then we moved her to what we thought was a really good rehab/senior living place. Turns out, it wasn’t terrific, but that’s another story.

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