Weary Dream

Sometimes I dream about the days when they’ll be gone and I’ll be free. No more cutting hair and nails or the crusts off their sandwiches. I often start daydreaming when my sons are both yelling at me. “Don’t yell at me!” I snap. “I cut off your crusts!” But in the early morning when they climb into my bed and push their little bodies against mine (one on either side), I wish time would stop. For a moment, we three are a sculpture carved from the same smooth stone. Perfectly made, with no hard edges. — Anna Sullivan

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

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Our Silent Fire

One recent summer evening, my husband and I were sitting by the fire pit at our home north of Chicago, watching the flames dance, feeling tired but content. If someone had been watching us, they may have thought, “Now there’s a couple with nothing to talk about.” But, after 38 years of marriage — and a day biking and working in the backyard — I thought, “Who else could I do this with? Who else would I want to do this with?” Hours later, we checked the embers, covered the pit and headed wordlessly up to bed. — Ellen Blum Barish

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

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Remembering 3 Words

The neurological examination was over. Alan had done better than expected, remembering two of the three words (“pencil” and “watch”) and the incumbent president’s name. As the doctor wrote his prescriptions, I stood next to my very tired and stressed 88-year-old husband of 40 years. Answering questions puts a strain on him. He knows his memory is failing. Later, I asked if he remembered the three words. He looked at me blankly, then nodded. I said, “What were they?” Quietly, and with such sincerity, he looked into my face and said, “I love you.” — Jane Fennell

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

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Between the Sunflower Stalks

August in a West Virginia sunflower field, early morning but already hot. Charlie’s blue helmet bobs through brilliant yellow flowers. He smiles as I eye other infants between the sunflower stalks. I envy their round heads, symmetrical faces, bare scalps. Suddenly, I miss Charlie’s smell, so I duck beneath his helmet to peck his cheek. “Why can’t I have a helmet like Charlie?” my older son moans, tugging at my shorts. A seed of jealousy planted in him, the root of my own problems, too: To believe our gifts are burdens, the inability to recognize our own bloom. — Anna Rollins

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

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Cup of Comfort

When Jamie goes away on a business trip, he doesn’t write a love note to place on my pillow. He leaves a tea bag with my morning mug on the kitchen counter. And fresh water in the kettle. As Jamie rides his early-morning train from Boston to New York, I hope he can picture me in our kitchen, wearing a T-shirt and flannel pajamas, making the tea he set out. We’ve been married over 30 years — enough time to know that love is less about the words and so much more about the deeds. Indeed. — Maribeth Stratford Millar

Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…

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