Bøger af Lisa Cerasoli

BONUS TIP #26When all else fails, feel free to use our secret weapon: BETTY. Betty is the make believe woman we blamed for everything.... Lost hearing aids, missing money, stale coffee: Betty.Excerpt from...40/40 VisionIn November of 2013, I brought Jazz and my mom to a caregiver conference. In the midst of my ready-made speech, Jazz raised her hand.And so I called on her."Mom! Mom, tell everyone how fun grandma's funeral was!" Jazz just put the "fun" in funeral. I had to stop and think. My gram never had a driver's license. She barely left the house, even when she was healthy. She spent the last six years dying from a broken heart and Alzheimer's disease. And yet my gram, somehow, made forty new friends that were half her age during that time too. And they all came to say goodbye. If she were here, she wouldn't have known any of them. But they knew her.They were laughing, crying, retelling stories, singing her favorite song: "Let's Make Believe That We're Happy." They were having fun.I was in awe. It made me think maybe our caregiving fiasco wasn't a fiasco at all. Maybe, just maybe, we got a few things right. You should have seen this wake; it was standing room only. And, damn, was it fun.Excerpt from...The Dread Zone...Full-time caregivers don't enter a dread zone as part of their daily routine. Their tactic is adapting to a world that doesn't appear to have a beginning or end, so they adjust by staying even keeled-managing high energy, low energy, no energy, emergency, insomnia, exhaustion, hysteria. Months of full-time caregiving can feel like one long day. But it's not the sort of thing that is "dreaded," like winter, or taxes, or getting a colonoscopy. There's no emotional buildup in full-time caregiving to produce a feeling of daily dread, like with part-time caregiving. They both have their challenges. There are a lot of incredible people in the world who aren't capable of this job at all. I commend anybody who's been mastering the art of compassion, patience, tolerance, swallowing tears, and biting their tongue by being a caregiver at all, even if it's visiting "Dad" for just an hour a day. Let's not compete for most hours logged. The key to effective caregiving isn't about the big picture; it's captured in the tiny moments.Excerpt from....What Now? Life after Caregiving I woke up this morning easy enough. But as I crept down the stairs to make Jazz breakfast, I turned and yelled in a whispery voice, "Be quiet when you come down, sweetheart! We don't want to wake G.G.!" As soon as the words escaped my lips, it was as if the biggest bully on the playground had punched me in the gut. I grabbed my stomach with one hand, the wall with the other because I thought I was going to puke. When that feeling passed, I nice big jolt of "crazy" hit. And then after that, I waited and waited without moving an inch. I was waiting for the big blow, for Jazz to yell back, "Mom, you silly head! G.G.'s dead!" There was nothing but silence, which meant Jazz must not have heard me. She's like my conscious; she'd never let something like that slide. I concluded she wasn't paying attention. Thank God. Anyway, that's how I started day four of my new life without G.G. I was ending it by reading to Jazz with tears streaming ferociously down my cheeks, speckling her book, wrinkling its pages. "Mama, Mama? Are you okay?" she asked."I'm okay, babe. I just miss G.G."And then Jazz went to the window, looked up into the black night, and said, "She's right there. When you miss her, just look for the brightest star in the sky and wave. And you won't miss her anymore."

The deadly actions set in motion by Collin St. Germain during the Gulf War created a catastrophic chain of events, resulting in an IED triggered homeland terrorist attack over a decade later. In 2008, Fort Bliss was targeted by one of its own: Army Captain Burak Yilmaz. When it's discovered that Collin's wife has close ties to the Captain, she is thrust into the spotlight of a national investigation that leaves her scorned by the nation. Now, the time has come for her to confess what happened-what really happened with her marriage, her trial, and Captain Yilmaz-to the new love of her life before the couple embarks on a perilous mission to Africa. But, when movie star James Bayer learns the truth about what haunts Lauren St. Germain, will he still want her in his life?

"When I landed in California in 1989, I followed the rest of the passengers to baggage claim. There, one woman caught my attention. I knew she was my mother, even though I hadn't seen her since I was three. When our eyes met, she knew who I was, too. The closer I got, the colder and more distant the space between us became. This was my first memory in my new world, my first jolt of freedom."The pain and shame and worthlessness that I experienced when I escaped the Children of God cult at fourteen became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was derivative of the abuse and severe neglect I had suffered since birth. And so was my brother, Michael. We were born second-generation Children of God cult members and had known no other life. Our father was devoted to the organization and was abusive both physically and emotionally, and our mother had parted ways with him when we were just two and three. Adults had started experimenting sexually with us by the time we were ten and eleven. We had been brainwashed to believe our leader, "Moses David," was to be followed without question. We read the Bible daily; we read "Mo Letters" about rape and hell and the fate of "backsliders"-people who went against the cult. We were told that horrible things would happen to us if we left. Our subconscious minds ruled our behaviors once we entered the real world, the "Whore," as the C.O.G. called America. Deluded as we were, we backslid into our own demise. I started experimenting with drugs, alcohol, and sex. I attempted suicide. Yet, I still managed to graduate from high school with the help of my aunt and uncle. By that point, however, my mother and stepfather said I was an adult, and so I was left to figure out how to exist on my own. I had no understanding of the big world. I had no useful social skills or any skills. I didn't even know how to drive. I lived with one boyfriend until he realized I was an empty soulless human shell, and then I'd move onto the next. After spending several years on the streets in Hollywood, I ended up wandering Venice Beach for a few months. I would stare at the ocean longingly, begging for it to take me home. It was so beautiful, and I was nothing. Then one day, a couple police officers found me standing on the median of a Freeway down in Santa Monica. They took me in and I spent a year in a mental institution recovering. And then I was released.I was up north again, wandering around San Francisco. This was in 1998. I was at a gas station. My brother walked up. I hadn't seen him in years. His smile was as magnetic as ever. He saw the tracks in my arms and asked me to please stop hurting myself. He bought me a burrito, said I was too thin. I wanted to be better for Michael and myself, so, I went to the Children of God cult in San Francisco-to recover in the safety of the only arms I'd known as a child. But my story doesn't stop there....To imagine a happy ending with a life like mine seems impossible. They wanted to take away my body, my soul, my choices, and my voice. But, the one thing they did not anticipate was that I would find within myself the strength of will to do more than just survive. And the gift of will would become mine.