Relationships & Family

Better than Ever

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:39 -0600

Our daughter, Kendra, dreamed of having a perfect wedding. When she got engaged to her college sweetheart, I was thrilled.

From a trip to India, my husband and I brought home 25 yards of delicate hand-spun silk for her gown. "Oh, Mom, it's beautiful!" Kendra said, gasping. "The color looks like candlelight." She had been sketching wedding-dress designs for years, and I knew how much fun we would have making sure hers was just right.

A Surprising Anniversary

jnalewicki — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:30:53 -0600

Saturday was my parents' 60th wedding anniversary.

My four siblings and I reserved the fellowship hall at their former church in Dallas for a come-and-go reception in their honor.

I prayed it would be more than a nice little reception. Since moving from Dallas to east Texas, Mother and Daddy had suffered several years of serious health problems in a new town with few friends. Mother deeply needed to reconnect with her old ones.

Latkes in a Wok

admin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:00:00 -0600

"Are they done yet?" I'd ask my late great-grandmother, whom I called Bubbe, on the first day of Hanukkah. She prepared latkes, a type of potato pancake made just for the holidays.

"Almost, bubbula," she'd call back. I'd watch her hands deftly glide across the potatoes as she grated and chopped. "Someday you'll make these," Bubbe would declare, handing me that first latke from the frying pan.

A Settling Storm

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:12:13 -0600

That Sunday morning Mama and I argued over the same things we had been at each other's throats about all summer: how short my dresses were, how loud I played my music, my choice of friends—especially boyfriends—and my sullenness. I lived for the day in 1971 when I would turn 18. Three years, I thought, then I will be free!

I stared out the kitchen window while Mama upbraided me about my "know-it-all-ism." Before she could finish, I slammed down my glass and cried out in frustration, "I hate it here!"

My Grateful Heart

test_1 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:11:40 -0600

Before the tragic deaths of her mother and brother, GUIDEPOSTS spoke to Jennifer about the influence of her grandmother on her singing and her meteoric rise to fame.

Barbara Graham's 7 Laws of Grandparenting

mcherkezian — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:36:06 -0500

Barbara Graham, a Grandparents.com columnist, is the editor of the anthology, Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils of Being a Grandmother (Harper, 2009), which tells "the whole crazy, complicated truth about being a grandmother in today's world."

Along Came Santa

admin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:51:00 -0600

I was traveling home for the holidays, from Sacramento to Fort Smith, Arkansas, by bus, taking my two young boys to see their beloved granddad. Sounds like the makings of a Hallmark story, right? It was anything but.

Truth is, I was broke. Flat broke. Dad had wired me $700—enough for three bus fares and food for my kids and me for the four-day trip to his house. I was afraid to tell him just how bad off I really was, that I wanted to move back in with him for a few months until I could save some money and get back on my feet.

The Dance Lesson

admin — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:18:00 -0500

When my widowed mother moved in to the in-law apartment attached to our house, I wasn’t so sure it was going to work out. There had always been something unsettling about our relationship. I loved my mother, but we were different in so many ways and I could never completely shake the feeling that she wanted me to be someone that I wasn’t or that I was somehow a disappointment.

A Christmas House

admin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 06:39:00 -0600

My favorite films always used to be about flying, movies like Top Gun and The Right Stuff. That's because I planned to be a military pilot like my father and then someday an astronaut.

The posters on my bedroom walls showed F-4s, the space shuttle and Han Solo's Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars movies. All that changed one afternoon when—as a 13-year-old boy—I found my mother chuckling over a movie on TV called A Christmas Story. "Come watch this with me," she said.

The Golabki Sisterhood

test_1 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:11:40 -0600

I was looking forward to my sister Joan’s visit. She lives in Georgia—a long way from where we grew up here in the Northeast—and I don’t get to see her often. I was looking forward to catching up—and had one special request. “Will you make golabki?” I asked her.

“Of course!” she said.