Guest Bloggers – Page 32 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Good Will To All, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

My grandson is a perfect example of why this country is called a melting pot. His genetic makeup includes Hispanic, German, Italian and Austrian. He’s got a Jewish branch of the family a Methodist branch and a Pentecostal branch. There are family members who are very conservative right wing, and those of us who are hard-core liberals. He seems, as most children do, blissfully unaware of any differences. He just loves his family and friends.

Last week I thought it would be nice for him to learn a bit more about his Jewish ancestors by celebrating Hanukkah. I have some memories of celebrating Hanukkah many years ago, in New York City. I also found that you can Google anything, including recipes for brisket! AOL has a radio station that plays a stream of Hanukkah songs. Ironically, the commercials were for Christmas deals at major retailers. I asked Carter if he had ever heard any of the songs (Adam Sandler’s “classic” doesn’t count!), and he said he had not. When I asked him if he’s sure he’s never heard them when he turns on the radio or TV or walks into a store any day between Halloween and New Year’s Day, a look of understanding showed on his face.

When I sat the hot, crispy latkes on the table Carter, true to his Puerto Rican lineage, asked for the Goya hot sauce. He also hot sauced the brisket. He decided that he loves Hannukah food, with a slight Hispanic flavor.

We discussed how people who celebrate differently do not covet our holidays, nor do they wish to stop our celebrations. They have their own beliefs and their own traditions, which they hold as dear to them as we do ours. Most of all, we talked about the common link. That is the spirit of this season. My daughter invited an old friend of hers, who is Jewish. He gave his perspective of what it was like to grow up in a predominantly Christian area. Very different than when I went to New York and as someone who was raised in a Christian home, found myself to be the minority. Mostly I found that the beauty of another religion fascinated me. I saw much of the same of what I experienced at home, which was family and friends coming together. They didn’t long for a Christmas tree any more than my family wished to be spinning dreidels. This should be a time when we put aside our differences and join in the wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to all. No matter how we choose to say it or what language we are speaking, all that matters is that we somehow find the willingness to be kind and respectful to one another.

Mary Linda Night, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

Mary Linda circa 1948 (photo: Lorie Sheffer collection)

This is the time of year when we celebrate traditions. Some of us may have lavish Christmas celebrations, including parties, family gatherings and religious services. Others of us may spend the season more quietly, with understated observance. There are also people who celebrate non-Christian holidays, while others don’t celebrate at all. Even with all the variations of the season, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t have some type of traditional way to spend time during the month of December.

My family started a favorite tradition over ten years ago. We would always set aside a night between Christmas and New Year’s for a special night of celebration. We would have dinner, the menu running the culinary gamut from Italian to Chinese. We’d have the always anticipated gift exchange. This was our special not-on-actual-Christmas-Eve Christmas, to be celebrated when and how we chose, with one of our very favorite relatives. Her eccentricity always made things memorable. There was the year of Y2K, when she poked fun at the Chicken Littles of the world. I got a space blanket, a basket of tinned meats and bottled water, candles and a wind up flashlight, as well as a copy of the book “How to Survive Anything, Anywhere”. There was the year of the stress-relief gifts, the year of the bath gifts, the year of the vanilla themed gifts. The gifts, always a theme, were purchased on the streets of Manhattan and toted by subway, taxi and a four hour bus ride to our home. They were wrapped with care, often with hand made decorations, usually packed into recycled frozen soft pretzel or Saltine boxes.

Last year my son and his wife had to head back to their home early to avoid the forecasted snowstorm. While I missed having those extra days with them, it made the fact that this would be the first year we would not be sharing our special Not on Actual Christmas night slightly more bearable. This year, his hospital night shift will once again mean that our Christmas week is going to be way off schedule. Still, I know that we would have somehow made our night happen. She would have extended her stay to make sure of it. But now there is a huge empty space to fill.

Every family has traditions. Sometimes we have to change them. This year, I know that my family will be thinking back to those special celebrations. It’s still too soon to think back on them and smile. Instead, I decided to fill that night with something totally different. It can never be the same, and trying to tweak it into something similar wouldn’t work at all. Instead, I have decided to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. It will be a way to teach my grandson about part of his family tree. It will be a toned down, yet celebratory night; new foods, new music, new friends. Yet while I was shopping in preparation, I could almost hear her voice. “Hey! Don’t forget the dreidles! I know a place over on Second St that carries really nice ones! Geeze….. you have a menorah, right?” It will be different, and yet it will be the same.

M.I.L., By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

Nothing in this world, save for snakes on a plane, will set some of us into a fit of anxiety more than these words: “Your mother in law is coming to visit.”

Mothers in law have long provided laughs for sitcoms, and if they aren’t YOUR mother in law, their antics and unfiltered opinions can be hilarious. From Mrs. McGillicuddy’s constant references to her daughter Lucy Ricardo’s husband “Mickey Richardson”, to the passive aggressive behavior of Raymond’s mother Marie Barone, to Modern Family’s modern day mother in law DeDe Prichett, mothers in law are a staple of family comedy.

Personally, I feel that if there were a contest for the most hilariously inappropriate mother in law, mine would win hands down. At the time, she drove me batty. Now that she is gone I find that I sort of miss her. Some of her greatest hits: Telling me that my 4-year old son had gotten chicken pox from his sister because I didn’t feed him enough green vegetables. Informing me that she had never gotten over the fact that my husband hadn’t married his high school sweetheart, who was “like a daughter’ to her. Sending gifts to her out of state relatives and signing my husband and my names, after I had already sent them gifts. She wanted to be sure they got things they REALLY wanted. And, after my husband had specifically requested me to make his favorite meal for him, she told me “Gary doesn’t even like that. Why don’t you ever make him something he can eat?”

When my son got married, my number one priority was to make sure that his wife and I got along. Lucky for me, it’s not that hard. I very honestly think she is the best thing that ever happened to him. My son also adores his mother in law, and I am happy that he has her as his other mother. I think the main thing that determines a mother in law/daughter in law relationship is a pretty simple rule. As a mother, you need to realize that your son’s wife is first in his life. She is not your competition. She is not the other woman. If you can understand and respect that, everything else will fall into place. So many times I hear women say they don’t like their mother in law because she is intrusive and won’t cut the apron strings. And yet these women act the same way towards their daughters in law.

A few years ago, I met a young woman from the U.K. She was telling me how much she missed her mother. She said something that I will never forget. She told me that her mom confided something to her. Mum said. “Of my three daughters in law, I adore one, I tolerate one and I can barely stand to be in the same room with one.” My friend was stunned, and said that nobody would ever guess that Mum didn’t love all three of her son’s wives equally. “Well,” Mum replied, “I love your three BROTHERS equally, and that is why nobody will ever know which wife I love and whose name makes me cringe when I hear it. And I’ll never tell you who’s who, either.” All I could think of was how much love that mother had for her sons.

Our Aging Parents, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

Photo: Gary Sheffer, Swiss Alps bus ride

Perhaps one of the most stressful things we confront at midlife is caring for our aging parents. It’s difficult to face the fact that they need help, both for us and for them.

I spoke with my friend about her decision to place her mother in an Alzheimer’s care facility. She lived out of state and would worry about her mom during the workweek, traveling home for the weekends to check in. She ended up losing her job because of having to take so much time off. As an only child, there was nobody with whom she could share the responsibilities. The neighbors were calling her a neglectful daughter for not packing up and moving back to the area in which she grew up. She knew that her mother’s care was becoming more than she could handle. She finally said to me, “It’s one of those situations where, no matter what decision you make, you don’t feel good about it.” She was trying to juggle this situation at the same time she was trying to oversee the care of her elderly aunt, who lived over a thousand miles away. She loved both of these women dearly, and she had to put their safety and well being ahead of her own needs or her own sense of pride. And yet she felt as if she were letting them down.

An elderly woman I am friends with wants to stay in her home, which includes several acres of land. She is angry that her son, who is in his sixties, doesn’t help her to maintain the property. He has explained to her that he needs to think of his own health issues. He has offered to help her search for a more manageable property in which she can live, but she refuses, saying she is not willing to give up her home. He’s being viewed as a neglectful son who is being selfish for not helping his mother, when in fact she is refusing the help and advice he is trying to give.

My own father was always fiercely independent. He kept up his large yard and worked part time until well into his seventies. His plan was to retire at the age of eighty, and he came darned close to reaching that goal. He is used to having things perfectly maintained, and while he is grateful for the help my brother and I are able to provide, he is not happy that he has to depend on us so much. It hurts me to see him sitting in the house while his grass is being mowed and his leaves are being raked, knowing how helpless it makes him feel. As a man of his generation, he’s not bothered that my mother cooks his meals and does his laundry, but he is saddened when he sees her taking the trashcans to the end of the driveway or do something he considers to be mans’ work.

It seems that for those of us who live out of town or out of state from our parents, there is often a sense of guilt. That guilt is mixed with a sense of relief. On the flip side, those of us who live in close proximity often feel guilty when we find ourselves wishing that we had moved away. It reminds me of the moms I used to chat with when my kids were younger. The working moms felt guilty for not being stay at home moms; the stay at home moms felt guilty for the moments when their children got on their nerves and they craved adult conversation.

Maybe the best we can do is accept the fact that we are not perfect. It’s normal to feel what we feel. It’s not being a “bad child” to want a life of our own or to need time for ourselves. In fact, we need to take care of ourselves if we want to take care of someone else. Most importantly we need to understand that we may not resent the person so much as the situation; that the other person doesn’t want things to be the way they are any more than we do. As my friend said, sometimes no matter what decision we make, we aren’t going to feel good about it.

Nothing, By Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer

A day dedicated to doing nothing. That is what I proclaimed the day after Thanksgiving to be. After spending time grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning up after The Big Day, I wanted to have a day devoted to absolutely nothing. Then I found out that my daughter was scheduled to work on Black Friday and she wanted to know if my grandson could spend the night and the day. Sure, I would be happy to have him, but I was not going to have the energy to entertain.

When Carter found out we would be spending the day together, he was thrilled. He was even MORE thrilled when I told him my Day of Nothing plans. In fact, all he kept talking about on Thanksgiving Day was how he looked forward to tomorrow, the REAL holiday! I hadn’t realized that with school, homework, three nights a week of karate class, trumpet lessons and everything else that makes up his schedule, he was actually looking forward to doing nothing. No plans, no schedule.

It’s great to have goals in life. It’s necessary to be responsible. But it’s also necessary to recharge. We don’t make rest, or sleep for that matter, much of a priority. It’s almost noon, and as I type this, I do so in my pajamas. I’ve been awake for a grand total of an hour, and my kitchen floor shows signs of the apple crumb pie I baked on Wednesday evening. It can wait. It will still be there tomorrow. As for today, I have a grandson, a DVD and a plate of leftovers waiting for me on the couch.