If I’m right in thinking that, after we die, we meet (again) with more learned souls. We go through what happened, what didn’t happen and what we learned in the previous lifetime. At that point we can rest for a little while or we can immediately come back. I don’t think we necessarily always come […]
Category Archives: Tolerance
Mother
When I commented to my husband recently that both my mother and sister were crazy, he said “You’re from the same stock, you know.” So after I reminded him that he married me so he must be completely insane, I got to thinking. What exactly are Mom’s personality traits that I want to let go? For starters, Mom is …
Random Dream
I dreamt last night that I needed to get through Campus and to Urbana. I found myself in a big building- and all the signs for the exits lead in the wrong direction. So instead of heading downstairs to the ground floor I headed upstairs- through the lethal ceiling darts (with tips the length of …
Depression and Suicide
It wasn’t long after Andrea left the US that I decided that the world would be better off without me. I would go home after school and, before Mom got home, I would get a number of tablets out of the cupboard and wonder how many I would need to take to get the job done. The …
What do you want to do when you grow up?
I can only speculate what my life would have been like without my sister. Although I was lonely and felt decidedly unloved, I doted on my sister. I didn’t feel I could trust my parents, so I wanted to be the kind of person that Louise could rely on. I grew interested in child development. …
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion/philosophy of lists. Historically, the lists start with the enlightenment of the Buddha (aka someone who is enlightened and does not have to reincarnate again). Buddha is not a god. Buddha is someone who, over hundreds of lifetimes, achieved enlightenment. Buddha said that there are four noble truths: 1) Life is ultimately …
Death and Belief
This story starts in 1991, on my 20th birthday: I was due to visit my boyfriend’s parents that week but Mom wanted me to stay with her: if Frank (Louise’s dad) died in the middle of the night she didn’t want Louise, aged 7, to wake up and find herself alone in the house. The …
My Baby Sister
One morning when I was 11, Mom turned off the Little River Band concert on the TV and said that we needed to talk. It was springtime outside and the sun was streaming through the living room windows. Against this backdrop, Mom poured forth a story about how she had fallen in love but that …
Brazilian Summer, Illinois Winter
Andrea and I were in school together – aged 14-ish. In the hallway one day I saw some older kids picking on a girl saying “Go home! We don’t want you here.” I remember marching up and putting myself in between her and her tormentors. I said “How many languages do you speak?!” When I …
Sleepless Philosopher 