Family – Page 8 – FindYourBuriedTreasure

A long-distance goodbye

My father-in-law passed away last week. When it was clear he wouldn’t be with us much longer, my husband drove to Chicago to be with him during those last few days. Before he left, we made the agonizing decision for me to stay home. Actually, making the decision wasn’t the agonizing part; accepting it was. In earlier times – meaning any time before the pandemic – we’d have been traveling back and forth to Chicago regularly, especially as my father-in-law’s health deteriorated. But since March, [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 17th, 2020|Columns, Family, Health and Well-being|Comments Off

A Morning Long Ago

I still remember how I felt when my first child was born, and I became a stay-at-home mom. It was a major transition for many reasons, not just the obvious one of taking care of a newborn baby for the first time in my life. One of the things I remember vividly, for some odd reason, is attending a Tupperware party a month or so after my son was born. I’d been to Tupperware parties before, but always in the evening or on the weekend. [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 7th, 2020|Columns, Family|Comments Off

A Confusing Day

For some reason, all day yesterday – Thursday – it felt to me like it was Friday. That used to happen often on days right before or after holidays or vacations, but not since we retired and moved to Georgia three years ago, when there was no longer much difference between weekdays and weekends. And it certainly hasn’t happened since stay-at-home guidelines went into effect in mid-March. I can’t attribute the feeling to the 4th of July weekend coming up, because holidays going back as [...]

By bettyliedtke|July 3rd, 2020|Columns, Faith, Family, Holidays, Values|Comments Off

No black or white answers

“We’re black, aren’t we?” That’s the question my friend’s five-year-old granddaughter asked her this morning. Her heart broke when she heard the question, and mine broke when she told me about it. It broke even more when she told me her granddaughter’s next question, in which she asked about a close family friend. “She’s white, isn’t she?” It’s not as though her granddaughter didn’t recognize the difference in skin color before, it’s just that it didn’t matter. But now it did, enough to bring questions [...]

By bettyliedtke|May 29th, 2020|Columns, Family, Making a Difference, Values|Comments Off

A celebration of friendship

“It’s amazing, after not connecting, in some cases for 20+ years, how much has changed. But in some ways, it’s stayed the same. I guess that’s friendship.” That was a statement in an email from one of my “old college buds” after we had a reunion via Zoom a few nights ago. I couldn’t have said it better myself. We were a group of friends who met in college, and stayed close even after graduating within a few years of each other in the early- to [...]

By bettyliedtke|May 22nd, 2020|Columns, Family, Holidays, Travel, Values|2 Comments

Old Friends, New View

I had a visit this week from a friend who lives in Canada and whom I haven’t seen in more than three years. Next week I will be visiting her in Thunder Bay where she lives. Also, if our schedules work out, next week I will also be visiting with some old friends from college. We stayed close after we all graduated, but over the years, when jobs, moves, families, and other circumstances took us in different directions – literally and figuratively – we gradually [...]

By bettyliedtke|May 15th, 2020|Columns, Family, Travel|Comments Off

A Different Mother’s Day

I think it was Erma Bombeck who said, “Mother’s Day is the day on which the family gathers together to thank their mom for everything she does – like cook a big Mother’s Day dinner for everyone.” Actually, Mother’s Day is a day on which many families traditionally take Mom out for brunch or dinner, so she doesn’t have to cook. But there’s nothing traditional about Mother’s Day this year. Most restaurants around the country are still closed, or unavailable for in-house dining. Travel is [...]

By bettyliedtke|May 8th, 2020|Columns, Family, Health and Well-being, Holidays, Quotes and Sayings|Comments Off

Creative Coping

“Creative Coping” was the theme of our Toastmasters meeting the other night. I think that’s a good description of all of our lives right now. (Our meetings, by the way, are held online via Zoom for the time being, which is how we are creatively coping with stay-at-home orders and guidelines.) Day by day and week by week, we’re all finding and implementing new ways to cope with the restrictions meant to keep us safe and to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Along the [...]

By bettyliedtke|May 1st, 2020|Columns, Family, Health and Well-being, Holidays, Toastmasters|Comments Off

Time for a phone call

So what are you doing now, that you haven’t done in a long time – something you never had time for, or just didn’t get around to until now? I got an email a few days ago from a friend in response to last week’s blog. She said she’s been contacting friends of long ago, adding that they now have more time to talk – about happy memories. She’s in her 80s now, and is friendly and cheerful by nature, so I’m guessing that her [...]

By bettyliedtke|April 24th, 2020|Columns, Family|Comments Off

New Traditions

A tradition is, by definition, something that is repeated year after year. Even so, traditions change over time. Kids grow up and go off on their own, families that used to live within a few miles of each other are now spread out across the country, and lifestyles of days gone by simply don’t fit our way of life anymore. Easter, like Christmas, has both sacred and secular traditions, and I now find myself thinking about all the Easter traditions I have taken part in [...]

By bettyliedtke|April 10th, 2020|Columns, Faith, Family, Health and Well-being, Holidays, Values|Comments Off

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