by Laura Landgraf | Nov 27, 2019 | Opinion
Dad died Thanksgiving morning several years ago. To write “Dad died” unleashes a snarl of tangled emotions. Love, loss, wishful thinking, anger, “if onlys,” “why?,” longing, forever. I loved that man with wholehearted abandon until loving him was no longer safe. Even...
by Laura Landgraf | Nov 19, 2019 | Opinion
There is a saying, “The madness stops here.” Yes. The madness stops here. It means that my background will not be my children’s. It means, for my son and daughter, incest stopped at my generation. The tangled web we humans weave has emotional tentacles far more...
by Laura Landgraf | Nov 12, 2019 | Opinion
A lovely friend of mine received difficult health news not long ago. As she struggled with her new realities, she wrote that she hoped to discover “the grace of innocence and the lack of resentment at being denied what I had before.” Finding joy in each moment would...
by Laura Landgraf | Nov 5, 2019 | Opinion
Snow fell gently, as I sat reading in front of our evening fire. My husband had gone to bed, but I savored the sound of silence, save for the crackle of the logs – utterly content. Content. Wow. Not striving, not planning or making notes, not wishing I’d done...
by Laura Landgraf | Oct 29, 2019 | Opinion
Forgive, but please don’t forget. Forgive and forget are not synonymous, although my background would suggest they are. All my life it was “forgive and forget,” which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense – if you’re my parents. Forgetting was the same as...