Instead of trying to squeeze in a mani-pedi while your kids are at school or during your lunch hour, schedule appointments for two after school or on a weekend afternoon.
It's a fun opportunity to indulge yourselves in some girl time.
The grief that accompanies early loss of a mother can ebb and flow through a daughter's life.
It tends to surge at milestones: a graduation, a wedding, the birth of a first child.
My father tried to reassure us that life would go on.
I feel an irrational bond to every woman I meet whose name, like my mother's, happens to be Ruth."The legacy of loss," author Hope Edelman calls that inevitable fallout.
"Lonely, sort of needy, but not wanting to need anyone because that's too scary."Rubaum-Keller offers support for women in Los Angeles, as part of an international network of "Motherless Daughters" programs Edelman launched 20 years ago.
Now there are therapy groups, social groups and groups for motherless daughters all across the country.
A kind of vest-pocket description of my emotional complexion: "Meet you in the lobby in ten minutes — I have long brown hair, am on the short side, have on a red coat, and my mother died when I was nineteen."Quindlen could have been describing Edelman. Or legions of young women unwittingly warped by ambient grief.:: I wept when I first read that Quindlen column. We tend to be hyper-independent, always braced for rejection and unable to ask for help."There's a sense we share of being adrift in the world," said therapist Irene Rubaum-Keller, whose mother died when she was 7.
There may be a chill in the air, but don't let it slow you down.
Bundle up, and hit up a local nature trail, park, or boardwalk (hot cocoa in hand, perhaps?
The idea itself seemed somewhat masochistic: Why cloak the holiday in sackcloth and ashes? Just the comfort of chatting about my mother's life and death, without worrying that I'm ruining the vibe of someone's holiday brunch.:: Instead of a luncheon in Los Angeles this year, Edelman and Rubaum-Keller — who both live here — are sponsoring a day-long "Motherless Daughters"conference next Saturday in Marina del Rey.
Why publicly unpack so much painful private baggage? Rubaum-Keller's session will explore how losing our mothers when we were young may have made us stronger, wiser and more compassionate. That makes us more in-the-present, more alive," she said.
Bring it back by devoting a few hours to hands-on foodie fun with your little one.