GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN Imagine you’ve had a visible medical scare: a dermatologist has carved a chunk out of your forehead,...
Say These Five Words
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN Imagine you’ve had a visible medical scare: a dermatologist has carved a chunk out of your forehead, or perhaps you are using crutches. But you have a lunch date with your best friend, and as [...]
Pat Taub
Friendships7
Writing A Eulogy And Finding A Poem
GUEST POST by JANE SESKIN I was about to cross the street when I looked to the right and saw my friend riding toward me. I knew it was Ann from her distinctive red bicycle helmet. She pulled over to the curb. We caught up on personal news and the state of the world. I left the encounter smiling. She was an energetic woman in her late 60’s [...]
Pat Taub
It’s Not Me, It’s Us
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN Life-changing wisdom can come to us by surprise. I worked with the novelist and New Yorker editor Writer William Maxwell in his last decade. After he had died, I read that he had brought his fiancée Emmy to meet his father in 1945. His father, a somber man, was delighted, and advised his son, “If you [...]
Pat Taub
How Did You Get to Where You Are?
GUEST POST by SHIRLEY DELONG Remember when the only way to figure out how to get to a place you’d never been before was to use a paper map? If you were like me, you’d write down all the road names in order, each left or right turn you had to make, approximate mileage and some landmarks to help you know you were on the right track. Or depending [...]
Pat Taub
Then The Line Went Dead
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN A self-confessed dinosaur, I have always liked telephone conversations, especially the old-fashioned kind: two friends, one (me) on a landline, perhaps drinking tea, leisurely describing events but more endearingly, feelings. The telephone handset made possible the kinds of intimacy one might be shy of having [...]
Pat Taub
How to Support One Who’s Grieving
“Grief is the price you pay for love.” Amy Bloom For a long time, as hard as I tried, I was awkward and uncomfortable in my attempts to comfort the newly grief-stricken. When a close friend or relative was hit with a death, I fulfilled my moral obligation to make contact, but no matter how often I reached out to someone who was grieving, [...]
Pat Taub
Growing from Vulnerability
Brene Brown, the popular self-help writer and TED speaker, insists that not until we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, can we truly live. You might be scratching your head thinking, “But I feel vulnerable a lot and my life is hardly a bowl of cherries.” This isn’t the association Brown has in mind. She wants us to embrace our vulnerability [...]
Pat Taub
The Life Changing Power of Female Friendships
Science is beginning to recognize what most older women inherently know: there is a strong correlation between longevity and close friendships. In other words, loneliness can hasten the grim reaper’s arrival. Maybe this is why so many widowed men turn into cranky old fogies unless they remarry quickly. As a young girl I observed my mother’s [...]
Pat Taub