Fifty-Cent Mom

It was hard to shake off the terror and the image of the headlights careening toward us. It was a pleasant afternoon. We picked our oldest daughter up from college for the Thanksgiving holiday. Lunch and a trip to the mall would complete our afternoon. After shopping on one side of the mall, we scrambled into the van to drive over to the other side. At the stop sign, I waited to turn left. Once my vehicle entered the lane, I suddenly realized I had turned onto the wrong side of a one-way road. I panicked, but it was so short, I thought I'd quickly drive through so I could merge into the correct lane. Apparently, however, a pickup truck spotted my error, flashed its brights and sped up as if to crash into us. I smashed down on the brakes and the horn. It stopped maybe a foot away from us. What the hell was he trying to prove? my thoughts screamed. I drove around him and soon was on the right path. Inside a brightly lit store I trembled and sat on a chair, while some of my ...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! There might be a bit of confusion with the holiday since there are Christmas decorations lightening up the streets already. Am I behind? I just set out my ceramic turkeys for Thanksgiving. I must be since most of the department stores have been ready for Christmas since Labor Day. Has Thanksgiving been reduced to a four-day weekend to pump up airline traffic and Christmas sales? This isn't a rant about people putting up Christmas decorations long before the Advent season has even begun, but about an appeal to live life in the moment: to embrace the seasons, to embrace the beauty, to embrace the dry times, to embrace the suffering. I remembered Thanksgiving as a unique and separate day set aside for us to thank God for our many blessings. Perhaps it began losing its significance when we turned our focus onto the feast and not on the gratitude. This isn't a rant about people putting up Christmas decorations long before the Advent seaso...