Jack Canfield - Chicken Soup for the Soul Daily Inspirations for Women

Chicken Soup for theSoul

Daily Inspirations for Women

Jack Canfield
Mark Victor Hansen
Marcia Higgins White

Backlist, LLC, a unit of

Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC

Cos Cob, CT

www.chickensoup.com

Contents

I know its the last minute, Carl said timidly, but I need a date for my company bowling party tonight.

Two years ago when Carl first joined our church singles group, I wanted to know this man.

Every week my heart fluttered at his warmhello. We danced together and laughed like teenagers. We stood close together on my deck,watching the city lights flicker, then, abruptly, he said,Ive really got to go now.

I must be imagining things that just arent there, I told my best friend.

Carl was a popular guy in our group. In the next year he had his share of dates, but none with me. But then came the telephone call and that D word. My emotional alarm clock started to go off, but I decided to give Carl one more chance.

Eleven months later, we were married. During our wedding vows, Carl said,Thank you for waiting for me. When it was my turn, I shared something Id tucked away in my heart. It was from one of those dating seminars:Love is a friendship that has caught fire.

Jan Coleman

Be patient. Timing is everything in life.

F inding a new job when I moved to another state proved to be more daunting than Id anticipated. The nurse recruiter suggested I try the new continuing-care facility. Calling a nursing home by another name didnt erase my dismal image about such places, but I felt I owed the recruiter the courtesy of at least touring the place.

On the third floor, wheelchairs lined the hallways as the residents waited to go to the dining room for their noon meal. Dejected faces stared into space. My tour guide cheerfully greeted each resident. As we passed by one old woman, she reached out and grabbed my skirt, holding me in a grip that was amazingly strong.

Suddenly, the cluster of residents became just this one. What is your name? I asked.

Rosemary, was the reply.

As our hands connected, so did my heart. No longer were they pitiful old people, but elderly human beings worthy of my respect and understanding. Tomorrow I will be on duty at my new job. Ill do my best to give compassionate care to each onestarting with Rosemary.

Barbara A. Brady

W hen I first met Larry, he came complete with a daughter, McKenna, and a son, Lorinon weekends. I was completely captivated by my new and charming instant family, but the childrens mother was a different story. I really liked Dia, but our positions seemed to dictate a certain grumpiness with each other that I did my best to squelch.

I watched the children grow,changing from toddlers to schoolkids. And their mother and I continued our civilized and awkward interactions, arranging for the children to come and go, and negotiating vacations and holiday schedules. As the years went by, I noticed that our phone calls changed.I actually enjoyed talking to Dia about the kids. We began a slow but perceptible metamorphosis that was completed the year Dia sent me a Mothers Day card, thanking me for co-mothering her children. And while it hasnt always been perfect, I know its been extraordinary.

One year as we all sat around the Christmas tree, I looked around as the children delivered the gifts. There we were,Dia and her husband, Larry and me, the kids... and, surprisingly, I felt at home.

Carol Kline

I grew up with my two sisters on our grandparents farm in Alabama. Our secret place was near a large pond where we would build our glorious, if temporary, playhouse out of red, long-dead needles of the pines surrounding the pond. Our roofless pine-needle houses usually wound up being about five feet tall; we never felt the need to cover the sky. After we finished building them,we would lie on the ground, facing the sky, and dream. Within these walls, we planned our futures completely, down to the schools we would attend, the homes and families we would have, the places we would go, and the important things we would accomplish.

Through the building of our pine-straw playhouses, we learned that we, like the trees, were sturdier if we grew close to those we loved, and our lives grew taller without the confines of a ceiling. And we learned that everything is more worthwhile and more fun when we share the job, where laughter is shared along with the work. Sharing our dreams helps make them possible.

T. Jensen Lacey

I met a friend of a friend when they included me in their lunch plans. In the presence of ice water with the freshest twist of lemon and a lunch of hummus on pita bread, this most unusual of creatures turned to me and said, Tell me about you. I suppose I stammered something about being a nurse or a grandmother or winters in Minnesota.

If I could return to that luncheon table, I would try to talk about the things I wish for and the things that make me unexpectedly happy, or the darkest thoughts Ive ever had to sweep from my mind. On those days when uncertainty reigns supreme, I can take myself back and begin, Let me tell you about me. Im the one who needs to attend to the conversation that follows.

Beadrin Youngdahl

A nna entered my life behind her son, my new fifth-grader, William. After a brief acquaintance period, I asked if shed like to help in the classroom.

I only got to the eighth grade, she whispered.

Okay, I said,Ill help you.

Helping her with paper grading began the first of many lessons with Anna. After a while every kid knew that when Anna came,theyd better mind their ps and qs, or suffer the low re-do grade. Then in February of that year, I got a call.

Mrs. Bucher, I want to help William with his colonial project, but I went to the library with him, and I dont know how to get things done. Of course, she mastered the library system quickly.

The last I heard, Anna was finishing her high-school education, with plans of becoming a fifth-grade teacher. Knowing Anna, shell do it, and the world will have one more wonderful educatorwho grades math with a vengeance.

Isabel Bearman Bucher

The journey, not the arrival, matters.

T. S. Eliot

T he day started out rotten. She overslept and was late for work. Everything that happened at the office contributed to her nervous frenzy. By the time she got on the buswhich was late and jammedher stomach was one big knot.

Then she heard a voice from up front boom,Beautiful day, isnt it? She could not see the man, but she heard him continue to comment on the spring scenery, calling attention to each approaching landmark. Soon all the passengers were gazing out the windows, and she found herself smiling for the first time that day.

They reached her stop. Maneuvering toward the door, she got a look at their guide: an older gentleman with a beard, wearing dark glasses and carrying a thin, white cane. He was blind.

Retold by Barbara Johnson

M y grandfather had come to America from Greece at the turn of the twentieth century seeking to make a better life. With money in the bank, the time came for Stavros to settle down. He told relatives he was looking for an educated woman from a good Greek family.

Stavroula sat in the chair in the parlor wearing her Sunday finest.Here, her father said, handing her a newspaper. Read this when he comes through the door.