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Michelle Linn-Gust's Blog – July 2011 Archive (4)

Using the Word 'Love'

My younger sister Denise and I often discussed the overuse of the word “love.” We felt that people said it too much because often they didn’t really mean that they loved someone especially when they finished a letter with “Love,” and then their name. Instead, we stuck to “Always,” before our names. At a church retreat during high school, she had to write a letter to someone so she wrote me and told me that she loved me. She said she did it because we never said we loved each other. When she…

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Added by Michelle Linn-Gust on July 25, 2011 at 4:55pm — 3 Comments

Remembering who we are

The end of a relationship, whether we are 16 or 60, can be devastating although not always for the same reasons. This morning I sat on the phone with a friend of my husband who is trudging through the breakup of what was a short marriage. It’s easy to think that we messed up and made a big mistake when something we thought would last forever doesn’t. And while I’m not standing in his shoes, what I do know is that he has an opportunity to learn from this relationship and make himself stronger…

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Added by Michelle Linn-Gust on July 19, 2011 at 8:55am — No Comments

The Disconnect of Connection

I believe my dad used to take great pleasure in annoying me each morning by talking to me. I would grunt back “Good Morning” on my way out of the house to go for a run, my morning coffee.

But in recent years as I’ve added four dogs to life, I’ve learned that if you have a dog, you must get used to talking to people. Or as Frank, the man whose 1961 Chevy Impala we used for my recent photo shoot said, “To have a car like this, you have to be a friendly person willing to talk to…

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Added by Michelle Linn-Gust on July 14, 2011 at 11:00am — No Comments

Ten Years After 'Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven?'

July 9 marks the ten-year anniversary of the release of my first book, Do They Have Bad Days in Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling. I still remember waiting for the UPS truck that day with the delivery of several boxes of books. Then sitting on the steps of my back porch, a copy in hand, worried that the font on the pages was too big rather than enjoying what I’d worked seven years to produce finally in published form thanks to Jack Bolton of Bolton Press…

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Added by Michelle Linn-Gust on July 8, 2011 at 3:33pm — No Comments