For the explanation of these posts, and all other entries from my mom, please go here.

Dearest Children,

Now there are three of you. When I first started this, it was letters to a daughter, now there are two more of you to write to. I haven’t much to write, except somehow to convey the happy glow I feel this morning. I am truly grateful to God for our happy family. God is so good! Each age you grow into is a good age. Laurie is such a sweet age, overflowing with school, best friends. You are such a companion for me. We can do things together. We talk, “woman to woman.” I love this. Lawrence is the spice with his love for everyone. And Ruth is a refreshing doll in our household. I used to think two or three years old was ideal, but now I know each age is satisfying.

Tags: Family, selflessness

For the explanation of these posts, and all other entries from my mom, please go here.

Dearest Children,

Don’t wait for the other person to do it and avoid responsibility. 36 People watched as a man killed a woman and didn’t even phone the police. When asked, they said they didn’t want to get involved. When you were born, children, you became involved. There is nothing you can do about that fact. If the dog needs feeding and you are close, even if it is someone else’s turn, you must not let the dog go hungry. “You ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”

Being involved and doing the Christian thing is not as some preachers say not an assurance of health, wealth, and happiness. A minister said, “religion is not an inoculation.” Being involved led to Jesus’ death and Martin Luther King’s and the Kennedy’s .

Tags: Family, selflessness

For the explanation of these posts, and all other entries from my mom, please go here.

Dearest Children,

Here is a saying your Grandma Seymour sent, which I like especially – “One thing we can do for our children’s future – give them fine memories of today.”

Tags: Family, selflessness

For the explanation of these posts, and all other entries from my mom, please go here.

Dearest Children:

Don’t ever lose creativity. This is imagination at work. I used to see private jokes, or interesting stories, or fascinating pictures in everything. Life was always interesting and I felt youthful. Then I lost this. I forgot to wish to hop down stairs, I looked at a tree and it was just a tree. Now I’m working to cultivate it anew. it is difficult, but necessary, or one is dead inside — life becomes dead. Even if your creativity never achieves recognition, cultivate it for your own livelihood and satisfaction. Keep on the growing edge of life. Your father is very creative in a different way. He likes to rearrange furniture, plan a house, or arrange a bed of flowers. That is good and keeps him having that spark he has.

Dear God,

The well is dry. My prayers are rote and routine. Bring back sincerity and enthusiasm to them. begin with thankfulness — not just me and mine thankfulness. Let me close my eyes and go through my day, every act, every emotion, every taste, every smell, every touch, every sight, every sound, every sensation imagining realistically and then thanking. Then let me open my arms wider, picturing the faces, the voices, the actions or day of someone I know and touching him with blessing.

Tags: Family, marriage, selflessness

For the explanation of these posts, and all other entries from my mom, please go here.

Dear Children:

Mature love is so comfortable; not as exciting as young love, but far more steady and assured. Love is knowing your mate will come home to you and likes his family and chooses to be with them instead of somewhere else in spare moments. It is knowing he sacrifices bowling and a better job because he wants to be with his family.

Love is conversing together. Love is the warm feeling one gets when one’s mate is praised or when one’s mate does or says something you admire. Love is the constant wonder, “How come such a fine person chose me with my inadequacies and still chooses me?” Young love is erratic very high and very low. Mature love never gets as high but neither does it go so low. It goes deep. It is not a moment in time. It is time and, God willing, beyond time.

Young love is ecstatic at one time and at another, is deeply disappointed in one’s mate. It is a time of discovering the bad and the good. Mature love is comfortable. It has adjusted to the bad and the good. I wrote a poem about this before I ever knew it. I wrote two poems, to be exact. Both express this as my mind reasoned it must be from what I’ve seen of my family and others. It’s funny now to discover the trueness, which before I only guessed. How well I hit upon it! And the reason, as I said before, is my good home with its example and discussion of homes we saw.

LOVING IS A CURIOUS JOY

Loving is a curious joy
It changes as it grows.
Our courting was in poetry,
Our marriage is in prose.
I loved the dashing words we used,
But now I love more.
The love we show in acts and words
Is deeper than before.

DEFINITION OF LOVE

An old familiar ease and coziness
Inviting two to make themselves at home
Within the depth of life experience
And there reveal their thoughts and dreams and hopes
– Is love – and not the pounding pulse alone.

A challenge, hand upon a hand agreed
To tough the top of every blocking hill
Within the span of their horizon view
And there to laugh in joyous unison
– Is love – and not the pounding pulse alone.

The outstretched hands of two uniting souls
Who wish to share the warmth and joy that rests
Within their heart’s expanding width and breadth
And thus be worthier of all this joy
– Is love – and not the pounding pulse alone.

Tags: Family, marriage, selflessness