From my experience, writing a eulogy can be very difficult. I have had to write two eulogies in the past few years. The first was for my aunt who I thought the world of and loved being around very much. She lost a very long battle with cancer and that was just one of the many reasons I respected her so much. A few weeks ago I wrote my second eulogy and this time it was for my grandmother who was 98 and was in many ways like a second mother to me.

Both times I spent a day thinking about the person and what they meant to me and then the following day I wrote down any thoughts that stayed with me. Well, not thoughts, but memories, quotes, and stolen moments that only I recalled. I believe that is what makes the eulogy personal, your own perspective. Giving the mourners at the funeral your personal view of the the loved one lets them see the deceased in a new light. It gives them your memories and expands on their own when they see similarities in your stories about them.

I also believe you must mention what made them who they were, their strengths, their beliefs, what was important to them. Sharing you own views is important, but connecting the entire group of mourners is also important. When I wrote my grandmother’s eulogy I wanted everyone there to know the incredible person she was. If they had forgotten or maybe didn’t know her very well, I made sure they left knowing this was a lady who truly left the world a better place then when she found it.

While writing both eulogies I realize how hard it is but also it is very cathartic for the writer. I wrote both of them in a day and put it away until the next day and then added more and did some editing. The strange thing is you get lost in the writing and almost forget what you are doing: writing your final goodbye for a loved one.

I wrote the eulogy for my grandmother and didn’t cry once. I thought to myself I am okay with this now. I then asked to read it to my wife to get her opinion. I couldn’t make it to the fourth word before the tears came. I had to stop several more times to compose myself as I read it for the first time. A little shocked at my response, I had to read it again to see if I could make it through. I did a little better and then read it a dozen times after than so I could hopefully do better at the funeral service.

Well, I did do better and only stopped twice when the tears were too much to hold back. But in the midst of the tears there was also laughter and joy for her life and the zest with which she lived it. I’m sure other people will be caught off guard and be asked to speak as I was the first time for my aunt, but I hope these tips will help during such an emotionally difficult time.

Take Time to Remember
Ask yourself some questions if you aren’t sure what memories to share. What is your favorite memory? How did this person change you? How did they make their mark on the world? Usually these have humor and sentiment and you’ll find comfort as well as a “story”. Get the facts about the person, even if you think you know them all. Take the time to ask other people close to the person you are eulogizing. Of course you want to know their age and all the biographical facts you can. It may seem impersonal but you may be surprised at what stories will come from simple questions like, what year was she married.

Come up with a Theme
I realize this may sound like you are writing a paper and may appear cold-hearted, but will help you focus. My aunt was a great cook and I talked about her cornflake potato casserole she always brought to holiday dinners. It was simple and perfect, much like my aunt. I used that to expand on my memories and love for her. The simple ideas are usually the best. My grandmother was a teacher and I used that to show how her love for sharing and teaching all her children enriched so many lives.

Write it Down
No one expects you to have a speech memorized so write down what you want to say. Forget about keeping eye contact and all the things you read about presenting well. You aren’t here to entertain. You are saying goodbye and sharing the life of someone important to you. If you need to read word for word than do so. You will find that your emotions will carry you, rather than hinder you and your words will come from your heart more than from the paper they are written on.

Practice, Practice, Practice
After you have written your draft, practice it to yourself then someone else. Then edit and practice again. I found each time I read it I thought of something else to add or I could go into more detail. Practicing helped me be more comfortable and allowed me to be spontaneous when I remembered something at the last minute.

If you are used to speaking in public this is very helpful. I wrote a post on public speaking that can help, but remember, this is about sharing your memories so that should be first in your mind, not how well your presented.

Laugh and Share the Laughter
Life is made up of many moments and a lot of them are funny, whether intended or not. Be sure to include some of them that you shared with the deceased. Laughter always eases pain and helps us to remember that life goes on. Don’t shy away from it, but embrace the moments that made him or her human. They are usually the best.

It is a Gift
Now I know some people may disagree with me and this is where it becomes very personal for me. But writing the eulogy for my aunt and grandmother was my gift to them and it some ways to those that loved them but even more it was a gift to myself.

It was a gift to my grandmother because I was able to tell her how she had made me the person I was proud to be today. It was a gift to many people there because I was able to share memories and remind them of what a special person they all had been privileged to know. Both of these are important, but really the best gift you can give yourself is the gift of sharing your love for the person you are writing about. During the time you create the words that become stories and the stories that become your gift you will have relived a lifetime with that person. And every time you read it again to yourself you will be able to capture that in a moment and feel the love and joy that person gave you.

So in the end the gift I gave myself is really a gift from my grandmother.

From my experience when it comes time to take your oldest child to college you can’t begin to imagine what emotions you will feel. You literally run the gamut starting with the night before when eating your “last supper” as a family and ending with he drive back from college the next day one person short. In between you try to savor each experience and burn it into your memory.

I just took my daughter to college for her freshman year and even though it was three days ago I’m still a little shellshocked. The last evening, before driving her to college, was surreal. I knew we would see her again and she was only a call or an email away, but still this was a life-changing event for her and my wife and I.

Kissing her good night for the last time as a child in our home, waking her up to get ready the next morning, seeing her in the rear-view mirror as we drove up, carrying her belongings to her dorm room and finally hugging her good-bye and watching her walk away were all moments like in a dream. You see them happening but you can’t stop them, you can only watch as if you were outside your body.

I am very happy and excited for my daughter and I know she will do well; we have prepared her for life and now it is time for her to start experiencing things without the close protection of Mom and Dad. I worry for her, I hope for her and most of all I miss her. But that is now and I know the ache in my heart will lessen and life will go on, but until that happens I do think of all the lost moments and look back with small regrets as most parents do. I should have spent more time with her, I should have read to her more, talked with her longer, been a more attentive parent, etc. Of course this kind of thinking is of no value and I push these negative thoughts away. Instead I look forward to the woman she will become and I am excited to think of the wonderful possibilities her life holds. I look forward to the story she will tell and the experiences she will have as she begins her life outside the home she has known for 18 years.

I know she will return for holidays, summers and special occasions, but one day even those won’t be guaranteed visits as she starts a career and possibly a family. I will cherish the visits even more knowing she will be gone again before I know it.

I realize I should be passing on experience with this post and so far I can only offer this: Do the best job as parent that you can so when it comes time for your son or daughter to leave, you can feel confident you have given them the heart and mind to be the person you know they can become. Then you pray for them and worry all the same.

I know one day I will look back fondly, without sadness, to the wonderful years I was a full-time Dad. My wife and I will live the life of a couple without children soon (my son is 2 years from beginning college) and I do look forward to rediscovering the couple we used be and will be again. But for the next few days I think I’ll be little more quiet and let the memories flood over me cherishing every hug, every story good night, every precious hand-hold and conversation we had. Time will soon ease the melancholy I feel so I might as well enjoy it while I can.

Update: Someone sent me a link for this book, I’ll Miss You Too: An Off-to-College Guide for Parents and Students to help with letting go. I haven’t read it but it got good reviews at Amazon.

Update 2: Well, it has been two months and our daughter came home for the first time. The good news is my wife and I enjoyed seeing her very much and as time went by the pain of missing her was replaced by an excitement to see how she was doing at college. There is indeed life after your child goes to college and guess what, it starts the day after you drop her off.

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I don’t know what it is about the simple act of changing a calendar year, but New Year’s Day is always a time of resolutions and renewal in our home.  We take this chance to start fresh and change things which we have not been happy with the previous year.  While some things cannot be changed, such as medical issues and the nagging car repairs that come at the most inopportune time, there are many things about our lives which we can change when we set our minds to the task.  The first tradition we have at our home is that of buying a wonderful and decorative calendar to hang on our wall.  Sometimes we are given one for the holidays, other times we purchase our own.  Every New Year’s Day I remove our old calendar and hang our new one.  In the process, I first copy over any important family dates such as birthdays or anniversaries which I need to remember throughout the New Year.  Many people set out to celebrate New Year’s Day by making resolutions which they really don’t have any real desire to fight to keep going throughout the year.  If you have ever been in a health club or gym in January, then you know how many people can be there that you will never see again come February.  It would be almost funny, if it wasn’t so sad.  

The key to making your New Year’s resolutions and having them become reality in your life is to start small and really dedicate yourself to what you want to change in your life.  If you are overweight, or even simply want to get into better shape, start with eating better and walking around your own neighborhood before you shell out the big money for a membership to a gym.  Another good way to spend your New Years Day is to take the opportunity of the New Year to clean out and purge your living quarters.  It is very common to bring home your gifts from holiday celebrations and then have no where to put them.  By doing some much needed de-cluttering and purging you can have space for all of your new treasures and make some nice donations of your unused items as well.  Two of the best places to get rid of your unwanted items are through your local thrift store or freecycle.org.  Thrift stores will generally take just about anything which they can re-sell to others.  With freecycle.org you send out an e-mail to your local area and the person interested in what you have to offer will come pick-up your unwanted items.  Both your thrift store and freecycle.org are good ways to keep your unwanted items out of the landfill.

In our home, we spend New Years Day first transferring the calendar, and then we move into the kitchen where we go through all of our cabinets and take a good inventory of what is in each of them.  For things we have a lot of, we make an effort to use some of it up in the next few months.  For things we will need to purchase we put them on our master shopping list.  While we are in the kitchen we also try to find items which make good donations to our local food pantry.  For instance, if I have been getting great buys on soup and have 30 cans of it, I will usually give half to our local food pantry and keep the rest to cover us for the rest of winter.    On addition to some of the suggestions above, it is always a good idea to look at the New Year as a time of renewal and a time when you can make changes to your life.  However, rather than having lofty resolutions which you cannot keep, start small and make goals to change things over the next year or even longer.  By making realistic goals you can change the things in your life that you choose to.  

Katrina Lorin is a writer for UniformHaven.com which offers dickies scrubs, dickies scrubs discount and lab coats as well as a host of other products.

Life might get a little bit nuts these times, yet you do not have to be concerned about stuff hardly as much if you consider methods to guard yourself. One of the things you have to know is that with the current security systems you’ll definitely have substantial protections against thieves. These systems are utilized today by both private homes and companies in order to end vandals, thieves as well as other thieves from going where they need to not go. When you’ve got committed to a cutting-edge security system, you know you’re going to get the perfect results, yet what’s positively remarkable is that you could do this devoid of shelling out as much as you may think. This is the innovation that is taking place in protection today.

After you begin to look at things, you’re going to note that it’s really easier to have good results for yourself rather than merely take things for the way they are. With all the appropriate security systems set up, complete parts of a town or perhaps city have been made significantly more secure. Start by making good choices, it’s much simpler to get the very best for yourself. With all the greatest technology helping you, it is simple to succeed at securing a house or even business. A great security system makes a strong difference in how you feel regarding your own security, as well. For any residence, it is about shielding your loved ones as well as for a business, it’s about protecting your people.

Obviously, it’s surveillance that gives you the perfect kind of safety. With security camera systems being in place, not only could you dissuade lots of people from going into, you’ve got evidence of any offense your camera views. This is outstanding and a large change for us all. Having a security camera system, you never ought to wonder so you have something to present the authorities. Even past that, you have evidence for court.

You have to know that it’s now much more affordable to have these systems. With security camera systems coming down in cost because of computers getting more affordable, it will likely be easier to acquire what you need. You’ll count on this to make your security significantly less costly. You can use a security camera system to completely make the most of your daily life and give yourself serious gains. That is most certainly a great thing that you’ll be happy with.

In the long run, you are the one which needs to be aware of your home or company. The police are only able to present so much protection. Doing what you can is where the true gains are. That will give you a distinct advantage should something unsavory happen.

Quit procrastinating! You probably have thought about methods to boost your laptop Net safety, but for a person good reason or an additional have stored placing it off. Time to get considerable and get some affirmative action. These six ways are just that which you have to get started.

Step 1: Discover Probable Threats

In buy to produce an effective strategy of action, it is necessary the you determine likely threats. This involves not merely approaches that your confidential information and facts on your personal computer may be accessed illegally without having your information, but also in which the threats may perhaps come from. Normally we believe from the nameless hackers lurking in cyberspace just waiting for the chance to invade our computer system and produce havoc. When this may be the most common danger, there’s also extra intimate individuals all-around you this sort of as casual good friends, small business associates, pals of pals, or maybe associates of family members, who if presented the opportunity could acquire accessibility in your laptop or computer and acquire some confidential details these as checking account numbers, bank card information, and also other personal data. The point here is you need to take measures to make sure computer protection from probable threats both equally inside of your sphere of affect too as past.

Phase two: Laptop Lock Down

One from the least complicated steps, as well as the most ignored by most consumers, would be to just lock the laptop or computer when not in use. Regardless of whether employing your pc in your house as well as your organization computer at operate, you ought to never ever depart your computer running unattended for any duration of time without possessing some type of locking system in area. Most computer system operating programs these as Windows do have this attribute enabled for as you 1st get started up your laptop, even so frequently customers leave their computer working unattended which implies any individual can sit down and also have access to it. Thus it can be critical to possess one more layer of security to guard your confidential files when your pc procedure is really working. This means owning the two a superb password to lock you computer system from unauthorized access, in conjunction with different passwords to guard files you ought to maintain private. Use a mixture of letters and numbers, the two upper and reduced scenario letters for your greatest protection. Never use typical on a daily basis things like birthdays, kids or pet names, telephone numbers etc., as these are just also risky in case the computer hacker is aware of you personally.

Phase three: Disconnect

No computer system World-wide-web protection computer software or firewall method might be regarded as 100% secure under all circumstances, day right after day. With new forms of malware these as viruses becoming invented each day, there is certainly usually an opportunity, possibly rather slim, that your present pc protection may be breached. There exists a 100% alternative to on the web threats that is definitely not often deemed by most computer system consumers that is basically no cost and extremely straightforward to try and do. Merely disconnect your Online connect out of your modem when not employing your personal computer. This physical break inside the path from the World wide web into your laptop or computer will fix any type of on the web threat that presently exists.

Phase four: Onboard Security

It is awesome what number of personal computer customers these days nevertheless dismiss the will need for excellent excellent laptop protection from the kind of properly respected pc World wide web security software. Both there’re totally naive and feel the myth “it will certainly not occur to me” or they operate to the affordable, and figure the essential malware and spyware protection plus the firewall provided with their working method is very good adequate. Others will consider items one particular phase further more and download some cost-free Computer internet security application pondering that this really is as excellent since the paid out version. Hello? There’s a cause why it is actually free! You commonly get what you shell out, or don’t pay out for, concerning pc Web safety. This really is to not say the fundamental protection configurations of the running process and a few e-mail software programs, web browsers, and applications should be overlooked! These must be activated to add yet another level of safety for your computer system against exterior threats.

Step five: Get ready for that Unexpected

With many of the concern about hackers breaking into your computer system, physically or on the web, individuals normally forget about the much less sensational hazards to their laptop or computer program such as electrical power surges or spikes and hardware malfunction. Any of those can ruin or corrupt crucial files and in some cases make your onboard security ineffective. For that reason it is smart to utilize a very good superior ability surge protector that will guard towards unexpected spikes in electricity which could fry your personal computer components and damage your challenging generate that contains your data files. When you are genuinely worried about these types of dangers you will discover battery method backups that you just can use that could instantly guard versus electrical power surges as well as power outages and permit you to save info and shutdown your pc normally to prevent corrupting any files.

Step six: Backup Necessary Data

Anyone accustomed to computer systems commonly appreciates or has heard a minimum of a person story of an individual who misplaced all in an immediate when their computer’s very difficult drive out of the blue and without warning… CRASHED! For those who really don’t often backup essential information files made up of confidential personalized information or perhaps facts which has a sentimental benefit to you as well as your loved ones, then it is actually like playing a game of “Russian Roulette”. It truly is only a make any difference of time until finally this comes about as pc tricky drives are not designed to final permanently. Occasionally a great computer system techie can even now entry a failed hard generate and preserve the contents to a different tricky generate, and from time to time not. Can you find the money for to take this prospect? External very difficult drives or “zip drives” are extremely economical currently and may maintain big quantities of information, in most cases the whole contents of your difficult generate, and provide a straightforward answer likewise as “piece of mind” knowing that you have your vital info saved in one more put must your tough drive fall short. Just recall to backup on the standard basis! Dependent on the price of our data and how normally adjustments are created to it, you may have to backup month-to-month, weekly or even each day. There exists no time such as the current to get started on taking the mandatory ways to make a program of action to assist increase your pc Net security. Tomorrow may well be also late!

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