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We nursed our Olympic hangovers, we changed the clocks, and we launched a new BlogHer website. But throughout the past several weeks, our members also slowed down and taught us lessons and blessings.
That's pretty appropriate for a time in which many around the world observed Lent. As someone who has never observed Lent but lives with someone who does, I always find the discussions about what people are giving up fascinating. Atlanticwriter probably had the most surprising declaration of Lenten intention -- she gave up cancer for Lent. She doesn't have cancer, but the genetic legacy of it, and she carries the weight of it around inside of her daily. She declared to give up the feeling that cancer was an inevitability and focus the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent to preventing a cancer she does not have from invading her life.
You see, some days I can literally feel it growing in my body. I can feel the cells mutating and reforming into the beginnings of a tumour. It was when my sixth close relative was diagnosed with cancer that the heavy inevitability set in. It seems I am genetically predisposed to cancer... both parents, two grandparents and two uncles have been hit so far, some of them terminally. I now find myself watching my kids and wondering it I have passed on this horrible generic legacy.
Amid all the glitz and glamour of the Oscars, StageMama provided us with a list of 10 things our kids can learn from Meryl Streep, via the movies and roles she starred in and even in the awards she did not win.
"Manhattan"
Daughters: If you're gonna date guys that are shorter than you, at least make sure they're funny.
You'll thank me.
Sons: If you're gonna fall in love with a Manhattan girl, make sure she's straight.
You'll really thank me.
Experience can be the best teacher, and we learn from people who have been there before us. When they can't teach us, their support props us up. Kellyburton wrote a tribute to the other moms who have made her a better one.
One of our recent meetings allowed me the opportunity to step outside and admire everything that is wonderful -- everything that works -- about 2 hours, twice a month, where mothers of all stages, in all circumstances, come together to share, eat, be creative, love each other's children, and learn how to do it better and how to forgive ourselves when we don't!
Contributing Editor Mata H learned the lesson of the four mythic fates of the funeral parlor. Her reflections of the small town, of the funeral rites and the way that everyone knows everything whether they should or not, transports me back to the small town I grew up in. A place where we too are all issued our "sorrow IDs."
The time-worn rosary beads slid through hands, and I listened as visitor after visitor was defined by some pain-worthy event in their life. No one is just "Stella's son." He is "the one that can't seem to keep a job." No one is "Henry's ex-wife". She is "the one Henry cheated on with that Italian waitress." Everyone has their little life drama that defines them.
Sometimes we learn from missed opportunities to educate someone else about something that is important. Moxie Momma framed her lesson this month in her post Ripples around the idea of "good ripples," something that the fans of television show Joan of Arcadia will be familiar with. It's the idea that every action in life has a ripple effect, like a stone dropped in water. Not all ripples are good, but with the right action we can turn a bad ripple into a good one.
It wasn’t until he left that the effect of the ripples hit me. As I replayed the conversation in my mind I remembered him saying that he was a local family practitioner. A family doctor! A doctor who knows better than to make fun of someone who has a medical condition. The more I thought about it the angrier I got. I had a decision to make. I could continue the bad ripple effect by brooding over this and spreading bad ripples all over town or I could do
