Author: Mershon Niesner

I’m the motherless daughter of a motherless daughter. My mother died when I was 8, her mother (my grandmother) died when my mother was 3 of unrelated causes. At 73 years old, I have the perspective of life experience. On this blog I want to affirm, encourage and embrace daughters who have lost or are losing their mothers to early death, abandonment, or dementia. I'm also writing a book on the topic entitled Mom's Gone,Now What? I'd be delighted to interview you for this book if you have lost or are losing your mother. Please contact me. A retired Life Coach and author of Ribbons of Love...affirmations for abundant living, I include an affirmation and coaching questions with each blog post to offer you assistance in moving forward with your life in a positive way. A mother of three, step mother of three, grandmother of eight, step-grand of 11 and step-great grand of three, I have the opportunity to add whimsy to my posts. I live on beautiful Marco Island, Florida, returning to the suburbs of Chicago in the summer to spend time with family. However, I'm a Nebraska Girl at heart, having grown up there and the off-spring of Nebraska pioneers. I've been divorced, widowed and am currently married to my wonderful husband, Ken. Life has given me many opportunities for growth. Welcome to my blog...feel free to interact with me, I will always respond to your questions or comments. My goal is to build community and relationships.

Best Friends

by Mershon Niesner

“A best friend is like a four leaf clover….have to find, lucky to have”.

Two special girlfriends from Illinois arrived yesterday and they are a reminder of the significance of the above quote. I am so lucky to have friends!! As a motherless daughter and an only child, friends have always been especially important to me. I didn’t have a big sister to lean on or a mother in whom I could confide but I did have girlfriends. Now at a time in my life when I don’t meet friends at school or at work or PTA, discovering and nurturing friendships takes a bit more effort but is soooo worth it.

To have friends, you must be a friend. I remember the hours long phone calls I used to have with my best friend, Jenny, immediately after I had just walked home from school with her. Today I still have long calls with my best friend, Nanc, who I had to leave behind in Illinois.

As I always say to my single friends who are looking for romance, “Prince Charming is not going to come knocking at your door. You have to walk out the door to find him.” The same is true with friends. When I moved to Marco Island, one of my first priorities was to find friends. Boy was I lucky! I found friends right away but I did have to walk out the door, join organizations and then nurture those acquaintances into friendships.

Affirmation: I am a person who deserves a good friend.

Coaching question: What do friendships mean to you? How will you nurture a friendship this week?

Burning Barns

by Mershon Niesner

“My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.” Japanese Haiku

Having just experienced Hurricane Irma on Marco Island, Florida, I can identify with this Haiku. We didn’t lose our home – thank goodness – but we did have significant damage. The good news…we now have a water view where before there was none. Enough trees were taken down in our adjoining mangroves that the water view emerged from our ground floor. This is so like life isn’t it? As tragedy strikes and we mourn, later we look back and see how we were changed… often in a positive way.

As I look back over my life, I can see how I adapted to the stones or boulders in the road and found new paths. Through my mother’s early death I learned how to be resilient at a young age, I became independent, I learned to cook, write checks and manage money, to name a few.

Affirmation for today…I look at my life through positive eyes. I acknowledge my ability to have positive, loving relationships and an abundant, prosperous, joy-filled life.

Coaching question: In what way have you grown through the “burning barns” of your life?

 

Let’s be friends

by Mershon Niesner

Welcome to my blog. I’m looking forward to becoming friends.

By way of introduction, I’m the motherless daughter of a motherless daughter….my mother died when I was eight, her mother (my grandmother) when my mother was two. Whence the blog title. But….I’m also a wife, mother, grandmother, step great-grandmother. I’m a retired social worker, marketing entrepreneur and certified Life Coach. I’ve been divorced, widowed and remarried. I love to cook, read, travel, hang out with friends, write, and (hopefully) make a difference in the world and to those around me.

I will be 73 years old in July so I have done a bit of living. In addition to sharing  experiences around “life after losing a mother” (through death, abandonment, dementia), I will also post about gratitude, joy, affirmation, faith. Sometimes we will consider issues like feelings of abandonment, loneliness, fear of intimacy,  In addition to sharing my own insights, I will share the wisdom of other daughters who have had profound mother loss as well as experts in the field.

I hope you will join me in this journey.