Go ahead and shed two tears...one from each eye, no more.

The angels have been kind to me. They gave me my beloved sisterfriend, Deborah. Thank you!

Of this series, I love what Bella Sinclair said, "We are women of resolve and grit and stamina, and we stand proud." I imagine all my sisterfriends standing and it is a sight to behold! Strong, intelligent, talented, beautiful, wise, passionate...women of all ages...whose art and words resonate with life! Today I tried to draw my Mother and my younger sister. I could not draw my Mother. The many facets of her life and her many stages of which I was a part, kept on overlapping. In the end I captured only her wavy hair and her cleft chin. Still, I am enjoying this series. I get to model a new scarf with every drawing.

There is one very important lesson I learned from my sisterfriend Deborah (Midlife Poet), that is to "never stop loving the children". I know that some of you will say "of course, it is a "no-brainer", but my house has been a refuge at one time or another for a few young people whose parents are not looking for them. Lately I have witnessed how easy it is to say to a strong-headed, self-centered teen "just go, do whatever you want with your life..." To me, there is a difference between getting the children out of the house from launching them to adulthood, happiness and success. Now that I have my own teenagers, it is so easy to dismiss the difficulties encountered in their quest for autonomy by simply thinking they can do whatever they want when they are out of the house and to kick them out when they exert their independence in a manner we may find inconsiderate or when they do foolish and destructive things. Being a mother is the most difficult job I ever had. There is no template for motherhood. Every experience is different. When I needed a friend with sage advice about teenagers, Deborah was there. She did not talk to me like a counselor, she talked like a friend and a mother. I realized there are ways one can deal with strong-minded young people, with logic and reason, with patience and with love. Logical and reasonable advice are plenty, we can read about them in books. Patience is a limited resource. Love, love is so easy to say but to lean on it with all your chips is a soul-twisting process, yet in the end, it is the only way.

I often wonder why we make special connections in blogland. There are reasons why these connections happen and why some are more intense than others. I am not going to question mine, I will just give thanks.

Deborah said to me, we are "Women who get up in the morning and do what they have to do to feed the children." I love how she said that, it reflects a part of my philosophy. She continues: "Some things in life deserve periods of mourning and others require acceptance. I like your fierce attack and kill it style. I think it is important to not become comfortable with pain."

Deborah, I promise not to be comfortable with pain...