Category: Heart Sisters

The most-read posts of 2017 from Heart Sisters

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

This past year has felt in turn like the most agonizingly slow year ever, and at other times like a runaway train threatening to throw me off at the next turn. Just this week during our family’s Christmas Eve dinner, for example, my daughter Larissa commented wistfully about her 2 1/2-year-old daughter Everly Rose, whose only goal in life lately is to be a big girl: “Last Christmas, we had a baby in the house, but this year I have a kid!” Why is she growing so fast? Where did that whole year go? But slow or fast, my Sunday morning blog posts continued throughout 2017. Thank you, dear readers – here are some of the Heart Sisters highlights for the past year:
 Continue reading “The most-read posts of 2017 from Heart Sisters” →

The Christmas truce – 1914

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

Christmas Truce 1914

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

As World War I raged on in the trenches of Europe in 1914, Christmas Eve arrived cold and bleak. But German soldiers put up Christmas trees decorated with candles, on the parapets of their trenches. Although their enemies, the British soldiers, could see the lights, it took them a few minutes to figure out where they were from. Could this be a trick?

British soldiers were ordered not to fire, but to watch closely. Instead of trickery, however, the British soldiers heard the Germans singing carols and celebrating. Here’s what one young soldier wrote home about this remarkable event:     Continue reading “The Christmas truce – 1914” →

The most beautiful 5 minutes and 22 seconds you’ll spend today…

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments

The most beautiful five minutes and 22 seconds you will spend today. . .  Thank you to Sue Robins (@suerobinsyvr), Nancy Stordahl (@nancyspoint) and many others who have recommended this to me. A conscious break like this is especially important to the freshly-diagnosed heart patient – who can often feel overwhelmed by pessimism and fear.  Continue reading “The most beautiful 5 minutes and 22 seconds you’ll spend today…” →

A Mother’s Day without my mother

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 32 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

Based on a post originally published here on May 13, 2012

As Christopher Buckley wrote in his memoir, Losing Mum and Pup, when the last of your parents dies, you are an orphan. This is poignantly true if that parent is your mother.

“You lose the true keeper of your memories, your triumphs, your losses. Your mother is a scrapbook for all your enthusiasms. She is the one who validates and the one who shames, and when she’s gone, you are alone in a terrible way.”

This month marks both the occasion of my mother’s birthday (she would have turned 89 on May 7th, which was coincidentally the second birthday of Everly Rose, the adorable great-granddaughter whom she would never meet) and yet another Mother’s Day when I didn’t send my Mom a card and flowers. I’m getting used to that reality by now. She died five years ago on February 21st, 2012.  Continue reading “A Mother’s Day without my mother” →