Me and Elton John: Thoughts on the Simple Life

October 17, 2018 / colleen arnold / 6 Comments

Who would have thought that a noisy, crowded rock concert would remind me of the joys in my simple life?

I climbed into my seat high in the arena last month and waited excitedly with 25,000 other noisy fans for Elton John to perform one of the concerts in his final tour. Suddenly, without fanfare, he appeared at the piano and started to play. His sequined jacket flickered like a million tiny stars every time he moved. The mirror over his keyboard reflected his stubby fingers as they pounded out the melody, and the jumbotron showed a bright pink scarf framing his aged face.

With my eyes open, I was clapping and singing along with everyone else, but with my eyes closed, I was transported back in time. I saw my dad humming Someone Saved my Life Tonight while my siblings and I argued in the back seat of his baby blue Cadillac. I saw myself making a chart of life goals as I sang I’m Still Standing. I saw my husband dancing to Can You Feel the Love Tonight with one of our baby girls wrapped in his arms. Continue reading →

Helping Teens Deal with Grief

October 3, 2018 / colleen arnold / Leave a comment

Today’s post is shared on the website Wisdom of the Wounded, and is about helping teens deal with grief. Even if you don’t know a teenager who is mourning a death, you probably know one who is mourning something else: a lost relationship, a divorce, even bad grades. I think you’ll find these tips useful no matter what the loss.

https://wisdomofthewounded.com/2018/09/05/how-to-help-your-teen-cope-with-grief/

There’s also a beautiful graphic you can print out or share:

https://wisdomofthewounded.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/WOTW_Teen_Grief_PDF.pdf

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. And as always, thanks for reading!

colleen

The Marathon Finish Line

September 19, 2018 / colleen arnold / 10 Comments

Sometimes the small accomplishments mean more than the marathon ones.

Back in the 1980s someone dared my husband to run the Shamrock marathon without any serious training or preparation. Always up for a challenge, he accepted. He didn’t set any great records, but he did finish that race. He even had the runner’s patch to prove it. Now here I was, twenty-five years later, clutching that faded patch in my hands as I searched a new generation of marathon runners for my daughter.

Six months earlier, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. Our daughter, Jacquelyn, signed up to run that year’s Shamrock Marathon in his honor. She joined the Livestrong Cancer Foundation team and raised more money than anyone on her team except for the CEO of the foundation. She was even the featured runner for the marathon’s publicity newsletter.

Sadly, she was now running the race in her Dad’s memory. Although she wasn’t quite as unprepared as he once was, her training schedule fizzled down to an occasional walk in the last weeks of her dad’s life. Continue reading →

On Being a Know-It-All

September 5, 2018 / colleen arnold / 2 Comments

I am such a know-it-all; we all are sometimes. And of course, we don’t know everything….

Neil and I were in Tuscany. The scenery was magnificent: narrow medieval streets, beautiful vistas visible from walled cities, history so alive I could feel the ancients walking the cobbled roads with us. Despite all this, the most remarkable part of the trip was my discovery of arugula.

We were seated at an outdoor café in the tiny village of Cortona (home to Betty Mayes and “Under the Tuscan Sun”). Before the waiter even took our order, he brought bread and salads. The bread was warm and fragrant, but the salad got all my attention. Simple sliced pears arranged on a bed of green leaves, and drizzled with good Italian olive oil, it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. But it wasn’t the perfect pears or the fine olive oil that impressed me, it was those peppery leaves. “Neil, taste this salad! The greens are amazing!”

He raised his eyebrows with a questioning look. “You mean the arugula?” Continue reading →

The Lifelong Challenge: To Love, Not Control

August 22, 2018 / colleen arnold / 8 Comments

It was a hot, hazy August day in Virginia Beach, and one that taught me a lesson about my impossible desire to be in control.

Neil, Gina and I were on a mini-vacation before she started kindergarten. We had a cozy base camp on the beach with chairs and umbrellas, a well-stocked cooler and a giant pail of sand toys. We even invited a babysitter along, so Neil and I could truly relax.

At one point, I realized Gina and the sitter weren’t anywhere in sight. “Neil, do you see Lisa and Gina?” He scoured the shoreline but couldn’t see them either. “They probably just went on a walk to look for shells. They’ll be right back,” he said calmly as he popped a beer can and settled back into his beach chair.

After about 15 minutes they still hadn’t reappeared, and I got worried. “I’m going to look for them,” I told Neil, and headed off in the direction I last saw them. Along the way I saw plenty of 5-year-olds picking up shells and building castles with imaginative abandon, but no Gina. I saw plenty of teenagers splashing tentatively on the shore, discretely checking around to see who was watching them. No Lisa. Continue reading →