Life is Your Story

It's already becoming dark outside earlier. It's already Fall. The Jewish New Year is knocking at the door and standing there by it are the souls we have lost in the year gone by. Whenever there is a holiday or a reason for our family to get together and sit around a dinner table I am reminded of how fortunate I am. At the same time, I look for family members, people I have so greatly loved and so very much miss who no longer sit there in a chair conversing, laughing and looking my way. We all lose people we love and when holidays come around, especially the New Year, a myriad of memories flood our minds and churn at our souls leaving us short of breath and weak at the knees. A Grandmother, a sister, a brother, an uncle, a mom, a dad - where have they gone and how do you move forward without them? Scents bring me back. This time of year when I arrive at my parents home and I smell the chicken soup, roast potatoes and my mother's incredible cakes and pies, I can close my eye...

Alone - it's an awful word. I meet people often who spend day in, day out alone. Some are fortunate to have a pet but most can't because it's not affordable or they live in a rooming house that does not allow it. I know them well. They participate in support groups that I facilitate for those suffering from mental illness. They have lost their mental health, jobs, financial independence, in some cases their entire family support, their friends, their pride, their dignity and inevitably themselves. These are the people you see on the "side lines" when you go about your every day routines. They are sitting alone in cafes nursing a cup of coffee and a muffin while reading or writing hoping that someone will look their way and perhaps smile or say hello. They are the ones walking - always walking because it's free and it takes up time and they have no where else to go and nothing else to do. They are also the ones who may look as if they are staring right pa...