My mother taught me many things — how to make wonderful Italian food, how to tend a garden, how to love one’s family — but during the last 48 hours of her life, she taught me the greatest lesson of all: how to die. –Paula A. Treckel
—The Taking of My Leave (Chronicle)
While the quote sounds like something schmaltzy out of Reader’s Digest, the essay doesn’t dwell on the sentiment: “‘Go and dig up the f-ing bleeding heart!’ he yelled at me from Canada.”
A good reminder of our mortality — and why I should log off my computer now and go home to my family.
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She teaches Government,and 1 class of AP- Calculus. *Advanced Placement
What does your mom teach?
Mom’s not a saint. She’s extremely organized because she’s a fulltime teacher and paramedic. She’s also very patient, and willing to listen to debate on certain topics. I asked her what that word meant last night. She didn’t hesitate or have to think about it. She knew immediately, but she did ask me to read the sentence to her so she could put it in the correct context.
Schmaltz — literally, Yiddish for fat/grease. In this context, “overly sentimental and emotionally manipulative”.
My goodness, Heather, your mother sounds like a saint.
A very good reminder indeed. My Mother has taken on the obligation of caring for her Grandfather since the death of his wife in April 2003. She continues to work two fulltime jobs, plus keep up with her children and their activities. When you add taking care of my Great Grandfather to the mix it makes me wonder when she sleeps? Or if she sleeps? Yet, she never fails to always have everything done. The only thing I ever heard her say strange was when she told her Grandfather that she would take him to live by us, but he couldn’t live with us. She had a home built directly beside our own. He comes to our house to eat most of the time. There are times he calls and says don’t fix anything for dinner because he already has. Those are special times I see my Mother smile and egg him on about his cooking. I see the respect she offers him to be close enough to live on his own, but still have someone in case he’s ill. We never understood why she went to the trouble of having his home built next to ours. Our home is big enough to accommodate him and his things. However, offering him the assited- living he now needs, and also allowing him to have the dignity of a life and place of his own was the best lesson she could have ever taught us.
Schmaltzy?