compassion - Life on the Road Less Traveled

December 27, 2017

Tips for Caring for Parent with Dementia

If you give Mom a cookie … She’ll want another one to go with it. Some days, that’s her idea of a balanced diet: one cookie in each hand. Not always, though. Most days she’s pretty careful to eat and drink like someone with a history of diabetes. But some days, dementia wins and the child in her comes out to play. I’ve decided that caregiving for someone with dementia is a lot like parenting a toddler. Some differences, of course … I would always want to treat her like the adult she is, and give her as much say in the details of her […]

September 26, 2012

Healing Childhood Trauma

This week on CatholicMom.com, my column deals with the signs parents should watch for in their children that may indicate they are experiencing trauma and need professional help. The source of the trauma varies from child to child and from family to family: divorce, death, separation, neglect, abuse, financial stress, the list goes on. For children touched by adoption or foster care, unresolved trauma from the circumstances that caused them to be separated from their birth families can affect them into adulthood, even if they are loved and supported by their new families. Love, in and of itself, does not always “conquer all.” What I […]

December 21, 2007

Leap for Joy … with Compassion

The voice of my beloved!Behold, he comes,leaping upon the mountains,bounding over the hills.By beloved is like a gazelle,or a young stag.Behold, there he stands behind our wall,gazing in at the windowslooking through the lattice.My beloved speaks and says to me:Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone…. (Song of Songs 2:8-12) It seems like a strange reading, given where we are in the liturgical calendar (so close to Christmas). And yet, the Gospel reading gives us a hint (Luke 1:39ff). A young woman, full of life and wonder, hastens toward her dear, infertile […]