“My favorite season is fall.  When I graduated from Emerson College, my senior photo in the yearbook was a picture of me walking down a road (such as this) with my back to the camera, starting my life.

I hope, when you read my book, you can reflect on your own family and friendships.  Maybe your life wasn’t “picture perfect” either, but you learned lots of lessons along the way.

In my real life, after the first month of moving my parents in with my family, my mother made a mess of herself.  I thought, “This isn’t going to be easy. Dear God, when are you going to take her?”

I was just smarting off in my mind, the way we often do when we are frustrated. We don’t realize someone is always listening. He answered me, almost instantly. Yes, I heard a clear voice (it happens) and he said, “When you learn what I need you to learn.”

Remember the part in the Bible where every knee shall bow? Well, I dropped instantly to my knees and apologized to God in my mind.  My mother looked at me expectantly.  I cleaned her up and started concentrating on the lesson.  By the end of her life, which took about eighteen more months, I had learned the lesson. Forgiveness and patience.  Advice: Don’t pray for patience…God will teach you that lesson!

The week my mother died, her eyes cleared and she knew who I was. She addressed me by my name and she apologized, which was the apology of a lifetime. I apologized, too. We hugged and I held her and cried.   Forgiveness.