Liessa and I have come to terms with something Rachel is not entirely ready to concede. She is more like both of us than she would prefer to admit. Like Liessa, she does not casually explore ideas. She enters them fully. If a subject carries weight or tension, she studies it until the room shifts. …
Table of Contents Movement 7: Pop’s Poem — Right-Side Up Movement 8: What I Am Learning as a Grandparent Movement 9: The Music We Play in the Quiet Years Movement 10: Pop’s Poem — Melody in the Middle Years Movement 11: A Poem from Sussa & Pops — Grandparenting in the Wi-Fi Age Movement 12: …
Personal Standalone Reflection Bailey, I wanted to follow up with you on the conversation you, Sussa, and I had this past Thursday morning. Not as advice. Just as something I’ve learned and wish I had understood earlier in my life. There are seasons in life when you are not lost, but you are not settled …
Practicing Nearness Across Generations Table of Contents Movement 13: What Grandparents Do — A Love That Learns Across Generations Movement 14: Generational Wisdom — From Z to Alpha Movement 15: “Timeouts” Are Also for Grandparents Too Movement 16: Learning to Be Present Movement 17: It’s Not Too Late — A Word for the Regretful Grandparent …
I had a dream last night that was not troubling. It did not arrive with urgency or demand interpretation. It simply offered a perspective and then waited. In the dream, I was at a Friday night Shabbat service. The room was full and alive with energy. Men wore yarmulkes. There was movement and sound and …
When Liessa and I were talking about prayer last night with an overnight guest, her desire to grow in prayer and her frustration with what felt like slow progress led us into a deeper conversation about grace. What became apparent was how easily effort, when left unchecked, tries to outrun God’s agency. The will begins …
I asked Liessa the other day if, given the chance, she could go back and do one thing differently in the liminal space she occupied for seventy years, what would it be? As I listened to my own question, I realized I had never answered it for myself. But the moment I spoke it inwardly, …
Note from Ron This four part collection is being sent as a 2025 Christmas gift to those I consider family and close friends. I am putting the final touches on it early Christmas Eve morning, while our home is quiet. Our three grandchildren and their parents from New Jersey are upstairs sleeping, Liessa is resting …
Lauren is my oldest granddaughter—23 years old and already a trailblazer in our family. She’ll is the first of our ten grandchildren to earn a master’s degree. And she didn’t just get through her undergraduate program—she did it in 3.5 years, right in the thick of the post-COVID chaos. That alone speaks volumes about her …
I have come to understand how Liessa and I communicate and why it works. She speaks in soundbites. I speak in hyperbole. She gives you the headline. I give you the entire front page, the editorials, entertainment, and travel sections. Somehow, this pairing has worked for decades. Liessa delivers clarity in short form. She trims …