We communicate, but usually on a very easy, non-challenging level. I know my mother approves of many of my choices, but she does not always say so. So, it was difficult to find the right words and the right time to give the spoken message to my mother. It worked out that we ended up alone in the kitchen one evening, fixing dinner together, and the spoken message just came naturally. As I chopped vegetables and mom cooked, I told her that I loved her and that I valued her. I also told her that I wanted her to know that, and that I knew we'd had our differences but that didn't mean I loved her any less. She was surprised, but touched. I saw her wipe a tear away when she thought I wasn't looking. She didn't say much to me, other than she loved me too, but it felt like there was a wall between us before and it had been broken by our words.

             Attaching High Value. I guess the touching and talking did have more value than I originally thought, because my mom just got "softer" somehow after we talked. I think we talked more after that, and we both were interested in what the other had to say. I also told her that I wanted to know more about her life when she was my age. A couple of times we went to lunch together, and she began to share stories of her childhood and young adulthood, and I had never heard many of them. We became closer, and there was a bond between us that had not been there before. I began thinking about the high value that had come from our sharing experiences with each other, and I began to really look and see how I truly valued the people in my life - especially my family. I seemed to have taken them for granted before, and now, it was as if I was seeing them in a new light. .

             Sure, they still did things that bugged me, and I did things that bugged them, but I found the atmosphere was somehow better all around, and that we were ALL talking about things a little more openly.