Who is That Woman You Call Mom?

Who is That Woman You Call Mom?

• What do you really know about your mother?
• Was she private or did she share openly?
• Would you like to know more? How might you go about learning who she really is or was?

If your mother is still living, the answer to the last question is easy—go ask her. Or maybe it's not so easy—maybe she is a bit aloof and it's difficult to get past the "Oh, it's so good to see you," or "What would you like to drink with your dinner?" Regardless of the ease you may have in your relationship with your mother, I'm guessing there is always more to learn. If she's still living, don't miss a beat—go ask a new question every day. You may discover something new. You may be surprised that with a little water and curiosity, she will open up like a spring flower. If she's not still living, I dare say it's not too late, just a bit more difficult.

• Make a date to visit your Mom—at a coffee shop or a quiet special place to ponder.
• Take a notebook or a recorder and catch every word. At least listen carefully. Even if communing spiritually, I believe one can get answers. I can't say how they come, but I do believe that they come.
• Don't presume to know what she's going to say. Allow her spirit to bloom.

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The shortest distance between two people is a story.

—Unknown author

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WRITING SELECTION

She Was More Than I Ever Knew

by Lissa Ann Forbes

Not only did my mother not share her feelings readily, but I was guilty of being self-absorbed—maybe for most of my 41 years we had together. My mother has been gone for almost 11 years now and I seem to miss her and appreciate her more each year. I miss that I didn't spend time being more attentive to who she was, learning how she ticked, rather than being reactive and wanting her to understand me.

In the last six months I have learned a new technology --creating DVD photo montages (a fancy slide show). I acquired some photographs from my brother that I had never seen before in my almost 52 years. As I put together this project I saw a woman I had not known.

She was young once. Why is it difficult to see our parents as children? As someone who had to learn all the things we have had to learn: walk, talk, dress ourselves, function in the world of work, handle finances, and parent our own children.

What I saw in those old pictures was a young woman (there were no pictures of her before the age of 17 or 18) who had fun traveling, square dancing, holding her first baby. I saw a light in those pictures of her that was different than the woman I remember growing up with. It's not that my mom didn't have fun during my growing up years, but as her daughter, I saw her as a guide, a disciplinarian, a teacher, a woman who wanted her daughter to have opportunities she didn't have.

During my lifetime, I never saw her as a carefree young girl who played with dolls, or colored in coloring books, or swung on a swing hoping to touch the sky. But there was something, something intangible in the photographs of her as a young adult that sparkled. Maybe it was the young love she had for my father. Maybe it was an innocence.

What I hope to convey here is that it is never too late to learn something about our mothers and be grateful for who they are or were and what they brought to our lives.

My mother gave me opportunities to play with my creativity. She taught me to sew and cook and host parties. She was there to support my efforts in school plays, swim meets, choral recitals, and dance showcases.

We did not have the perfect mother-daughter relationship. In fact, it was fraught with challenges, but as I get older and learn more about me from my own children, I am learning how much she really gave me. I am more grateful now than I ever was while she was living, and realize she was more than I ever knew.

Don't miss your chance. I hope you've had a chance to spend at least a bit of time with your mother for Mother's Day—in person or in spirit. Learn a bit about her that you never knew.

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Off the Shelf
Reading Resource:

For One More Day
by Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom has a knack for bringing meaning to loss. In For One More Day he takes us through one more day that his character, Charley Benetto, would have liked to spend with his mother. Charley travels through "ordinary" experiences and along the way makes amends while learning a new appreciation for the special woman she was.

I found I wanted to not only drink in the printed words in this book, but the meaning I found between the lines. The meaning of rethinking how I wished I had done things differently with my mother. It made me ponder, do we really ever know another? Are we ever really capable of doing it differently? What I do know is they play a special role in our lives.

To view the DVD montage featuring my mother, A Woman of Substance, go to www.SacredHeartfeltMoments.com

From Write from the Inside: The Ezine, Issue #58, ISSN 1937-2574

You Got Questions, I Got Answers

I realized recently that people are constantly asking me questions and I like to find the answers. Given the fact that I know a bit about a lot of things, I think I have a knack for helping folks with the stuff they don’t have time to research.

So, if you need resources for your business, need the how-to’s for your life, let me know and I’ll see what I can find out for you.

My main focus is helping folks preserve their life stories in book form or DVD photo legacies. I’ve been doing this for 6 years and my clients love me. Just ask ‘em.

Things I know about (and this is just a start):

• Publishing a book, I took self-publishing to a new level … writing, garnering permissions, layout & design, ISBNs, LCCNs, barcodes, copyright application, working with printers. I even hand-bind softcover books, but I’m not crazy enough to do 500 copies.
• Public speaking, how to start making money as a newbie and build your contact list after Toastmasters has taught you all they know.
• Designing webpages, ezines, and blogs … I do my own and get changes made when I want them made, not when a web designer can get around to it. I do it now.
• Teleconferencing … I just love to get folks together to learn new stuff that can enhance their lives and their business.
• Organizing other people’s stuff … I do a great job with other people’s stuff, but can’t seem to get rid of any of my own stuff. Just ask my Mom. Well, you can’t do that since she died in 1996, but I am a lovesick packrat …
• How to transform from wall flower to super star … learning to find confidence in the little things one step at a time.
• How to search the internet and find just about anything … I can sit for hours watching the little gear go ’round and ’round. But I learn lots of new bits of trivia that most folks don’t have time to learn.
• Traveling to Europe and how to find the best B & B in each town.

I Can't Help Myself

As you can see, I just love to watch movies. I "study" them on some subliminal level to capture the story line, and transitions, how scene and dialogue play together, and the underlying message.



Peaceful Warrior has many layers to it. This movie will make you think about how you go through your days. As Socrates say, "Many people live their wholes lives without being awake." Based on Dan Millman's life and his book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, originally published in 1980.

I've read the book twice and have now seen the movie. It's a journey well worth studying.

The Ultimate Gift: a "must see" movie

This movie is in the league of The Secret. If we all lived by these precepts the world would be the most incredible place to live. The twelve gifts are of Friends, Giving, Family, Dreams, Work, Laughter, Money, Learning, A Day, and Love.



Watch the movie, live this way, watch you life change! I have experienced a few of these already ... things I've done on my own. But, I know I can do more. You can too.

A movie to see: Freedom Writers

I just loved this movie, Freedom Writers. It's an "underdog makes good" film where inner city high school students find their own stories with the help of a sensitive, persistent, dedicated teacher who showed them the value of capturing their stories in journals. The movie is based on a true story, also available in printed form. The book is entitled The Freedom Writers Diary : How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. The DVD will be available on 4/17/07.

Take a look:



It's movies and books like this that re-enforce my reasons for helping people write their life stories. The creation of a book or video of one's life is a process of discovery. Discovering one's own value. Seeing beyond the limitations. Moving into a greater awareness of one's divine gifts. Ultimate realization that one's life is not simply "normal" or "ordinary," but exquisite and extraordinary. Every life.

Check out Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer and The Ron Clark Story with Matthew Perry. Check Amazon for used copies at low prices.

How I Learned to Make Books

My Journey--Learning to Make Books

Thirteen dead. Twenty-three more injured. All between the ages of 15 and 19, except three teachers. A city in mourning. A river of tears and a field of memorial mementos. It was a day we remember just as vividly as Kennedy’s assassination. A day simply known as Columbine.

I learned of it at 11:30 that morning while on my lunch hour. A friend’s daughter called on her cell phone to notify of the news. The news that spread like a brush fire. Although not proud of my first reaction, “oh, not again” as I flashed back to such events as Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing, it didn’t take long to become intimately attached, realizing that my 14 and 16 year old boys could easily have been the victims. As I saw those young faces splashed across the TV screen, my heart extended the breadth of the city wanting to connect to the mothers of the dead and injured. I live only 30 miles away from Columbine High School.

Before long a website garnering thoughts and prayers was linking people around the world to this horrible event that was happening so close to home. I added my prayer to the ever-growing length of cyberthought extending itself to wrap around these people—both the victims and the accused. But it took some time for it really to sink in and for me to determine a way I could contribute.

It happened one morning at work as I was drawn to revisit the website that I signed. A divine hand had taken mine returning me two weeks later to see how the site had grown.
At the top of the page, in bold red letters, was a call for a printer or publisher to compile the thoughts and prayers on those cybernet pages in a hard copy book. I raised my hand so quickly, “I wanna do it, I wanna do it.” And the next day I had drafted a simple book cover and submitted it to the asker. Three days later I was in charge of a project whose direction I had no idea its destination.

The logical beginning was to “lift” the thoughts and prayers from the website first. That accounted for 190 pages of heartfelt outpourings on 7” x 9.5” landscape pages. Then I endeavored to create meaningful front and back matter: title page, credits, a recap of the heart-wrenching, thought-provoking song, Friend of Mine, that two young Columbine students wrote to honor those affected in this egregious event. On to the dedication, note from the creator of the website, preface, and photos garnered from 9News for which I received permission to print, and a single page at the end about the creators of the book; there were three of us.

Most of it was straight-forward, but I needed to figure out the pagination, so the numbers were on the bottom right of the rechts pages and the bottom left of the verso pages. I also added an image of flying doves next to the page numbers on each page.

This book decided it wanted to be spiral bound so it could lie flat while open and the cover would be hard. Adhering the paper on which the cover design was printed to the book board was a bit of a challenge because the spray adhesive made the paper curl and I had to work quickly to attach it, but before I knew it, 19 copies were made, one for the family of each student and the teacher who died, and 2 each for the three of us involved in the project.

This was just the beginning though ... the first step in my journey of making soft-cover handbound life story books. Now that process was a bit more involved. The layout was relatively easy as my creative juices just flow in this arena, but designing the first book cover was literally like reinventing the wheel. I managed to design a front cover, then I did a back cover, and then a spine—all in separate Word files. Once I printed them out and cut the pieces, I glued them onto a piece of poster board. It was only then that I realized I had to figure out how to create all the pieces in one file so that it printed as one continuous image that could be wrapped and glued around the pages of the book. To this day, I laugh about these humble beginnings. Needless to say, I figured it out and have been creating books the way it was done 600 years ago for the past 6 years. It’s one of the grandest accomplishments of my life—teaching myself to make books.

I'm on YouTube!

It's really exciting to learn new things and when I get an idea that fascinates me, or should I say once I've bought into it, I'm like a dog worrying a bone! My first experience on YouTube threatened to put me off forever. There was so much vulgarity there I wondered if I wanted to expose myself to it, but then I found a few things that were really worth watching. See some of my favorites at: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=LifeStoryCreative

Well, now I've got my own space out there so why don't you take 4:25 minutes to watch me grow up!



I hope you enjoy learning new things as much as I do ... finding the excitement that gives you a reason to wake up every day.

Keep writing, my friends.