Happiness. It's relative.
Posted on April 20, 2023 by Jan Wilberg
Sometimes, on summer nights when he’d decided not to work late but to instead come home and maybe put some hamburgers on the grill, my dad would ask me if I wanted to go hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. It… Continue Reading “A Bucket of Balls on a Summer Night with Dad”
Category: Family StoriesTags: driving range, father, golf, teenage years
Posted on February 21, 2022 by Jan Wilberg
While my Dad chalked his cue, I’d rack up the balls, arranging rearranging in the triangle all the balls as if eventually I’d get it right, the perfect mosaic, so he’d nod and break the rack, and see me as a player. ___________ Photo… Continue Reading “Corner Pocket”
Category: Family StoriesTags: 42-word story, father, father's approval, Gargleblaster, playing pool, Yeah Write
Posted on June 20, 2015 by Jan Wilberg
One day my husband had no children and the next day he was the stepfather of an 11-year old girl. It happened that fast, overnight. None of us knew what we were doing. We just lurched. We lurched from getting along well enough to… Continue Reading “Father’s Day Post #3: Life is Full of Fine Surprises”
Category: Family StoriesTags: father, Father's Day, stepfather
Posted on June 16, 2015 by Jan Wilberg
While my Dad chalked his cue, I’d rack up the balls, arranging rearranging in the triangle all the balls as if eventually I’d get it right, the perfect mosaic, so he’d nod and break the rack, and see me as a player. ___________ Photo… Continue Reading “Corner Pocket”
Category: Family StoriesTags: 42-word story, father, father's approval, Gargleblaster, playing pool, Yeah Write
Posted on April 29, 2014 by Jan Wilberg
When your father dies, you will be at a loss for words. If it’s a surprise, you will burst into tears. You will cover your face with your hands and cry like you were six-years old, like the time you got lost on the… Continue Reading “When Your Father Dies”
Category: Family StoriesTags: death, family, father, grief, relationships
Posted on April 19, 2014 by Jan Wilberg
Without thinking even 60 seconds, I hit the Buy Now button and sent my 89-year old father his first computer, a brilliant blue IMac. The same day I wrote him a letter, gave him my email address, and told him to email me when… Continue Reading “TIE and SIT”
Category: Family StoriesTags: family, father, older adults, relationships, retirement, technology
Posted on November 24, 2013 by Jan Wilberg
Don’t you wish sometimes you could have a Field of Dreams kind of experience and meet your parents before they were your parents? Encounter them somewhere ordinary like the line at the grocery store or getting gas at the corner station? Just chat with… Continue Reading “Ageless Timeless”
Category: Family StoriesTags: 100th birthday, 30's, father, growing up in the 1920's, parents
Posted on September 2, 2013 by Jan Wilberg
When your father dies, you will be at a loss for words. If it’s a surprise, you will burst into tears. You will cover your face with your hands and cry like you were six-years old, like the time you got lost on the… Continue Reading “When Your Father Dies”
Category: Family StoriesTags: death, dying, father, grief
Posted on April 10, 2013 by Jan Wilberg
I’d never seen one before but I knew what it was right away. The contraption laying at my feet underneath my dad’s old Sears picnic table was an animal trap. It sat in a heap, the chain and the two toothsome jaws, rusty with… Continue Reading “Old Roy, Deer Slayer”
Category: Family StoriesTags: animal trap, bird lover, cats, father, siblings
Posted on April 25, 2012 by Jan Wilberg
There was only one reason why my father would be calling me. My mother must be dead. He explained how it happened, how just last week he had given up taking care of her at home, that for the third time, she’d gone limp… Continue Reading “Prepare a Place For Me”
Category: Family StoriesTags: age, Alzheimer's Disease, death, father, funeral, grief, mother, sibling
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What happens here on Red's Wrap is all over the map. There is no single theme, no overarching gripe, no malady of my own or others that dominates. I write about what seems important or interesting at the moment. It could be about gracefully handling my own aging, being a good feminist, or finding out what it means to be a decent mother and grandmother. Nothing stays the same, here or anywhere. That's a good thing. Happiness. It's relative.
(c) Janice Wilberg and Red’s Wrap (2010-2023). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Janice (Jan) Wilberg and Red’s Wrap with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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