Divas That Care Network
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Divas That Care Network
Mom And Me Me And Mom
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Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to the Diva Zed Care. My name is Candace Gish. Wow, has this been an amazing, busy, crazy week? I've had the opportunity to interview so many amazing women. The reason why is that we're doing a special right now. We have an anthology coming out called Our Mothers, Our Daughters, and I'm so excited about this. And these women that I had the opportunity to interview this week are contributors in our newest anthology. So you're in for a treat. I hope you go check out all those other podcasts. And I know that you're going to enjoy today's podcast. If this is your very first time tuning into the Divasette Care, we've been doing this now for 13 seasons. We're listening to over 30 countries around the world. And honestly, it's because of all of our amazing tribes, our guests, our hosts, everybody that's really been a part of the movement out there. And we're just so blessed and thankful that we're able to continue to do this and support people. All right, today I'm so excited because I'm going to be introducing you to my friend Kathleen. And Kathleen is one of those amazing women that I've had the opportunity to know for so many years. And she has been an inspiration in my life, and she was there for me as a friend to so many things years ago. And I'm just so excited that it's come full circle and I'm able to talk to her on my program today. So, Kathleen, welcome to the Divas at Care.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Candace.
SPEAKER_01It has been a long time.
SPEAKER_02It has.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm so excited that you have come onto my my podcast here. And would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?
SPEAKER_02Hello, listeners. My name is Kathleen Oakleby and I've done a lot of things in my life and now I'm retired. And a couple years ago Candace asked me to write a story about m my relationship with my mother.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, here we are. Well, and it's a beautiful story, and I'm so excited because I thought the world of your mother, I thought she was an amazing woman, and it was just a pleasure that I had the opportunity to know her. Yeah, my mum had that effect on people.
SPEAKER_02But you know how it is about mums? The relationship you had with my mother was different than the one I had.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02It seems to be always that way. Yeah. Yeah, people tell me that my mother was perfect, but you know, I saw her in her less than perfect moments.
SPEAKER_01And that and that's the the wonderful thing about our lives and our journeys is is is being able to share that with others. And what I want to ask you, Kathleen, is tell us a little bit about your story and why you decided to add it into our arthology.
SPEAKER_02Well when you asked me to write this, Candace, I th I I thought, oh sure. And I was surprised that um most of my memories were more current than a long time ago, right? And that like I said, there was nothing specific that stood out, but mom was always there for me. And I was your daughter, so of course I wasn't always there for her. You know, time goes on and I was glad that you gave me the opportunity to do this because it kind of it helped my healing process. I talked about Mum after she was in the nursing home and the memories that came up while I was dealing with that and the oh, I just remembered Mum really was a private person. She didn't tell a lot of stuff to I don't know who she told her stuff to. But in her when she was twenty-one, I was born in Golden, DC, and she moved twenty-five times that year. And she never really did talk about her relationship with my birth father. But I you know, my grandma, my uncle told me a little bit, but she she just what she said about uh moving twenty-five times in one year is that she got very good at packing in a hurry. So yeah. And uh her my birth father was uh he wasn't an outstanding member of society. And so she had uh those lessons to learn and you know, we all have lessons to learn. We come here to clean up her act, hopefully. And so she went on, she was a single mum for and in the fifties I can't rem uh, she had to be a single mum for about five years, six years. And in the fifties that was a deal. Right? Like women were still women were still the not necessarily the chapels of, but definitely the uh underlings in society, right? So yeah, but she did pretty good. She did what she needed to do and made a lot of friends along the way. So Yes.
SPEAKER_01And she made an extremely independent, amazing daughter.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, thank you. A l a lot of that candice came after the healing process, uh after Mum died. There was a lot of acrimony in the family, and my husband and I were the brunt of that. And after Mum died, we were given the opportunity of some peace for a couple of years and were able to pull ourselves back together and do some emotional healing.
SPEAKER_01And it's a challenge, isn't it? Going through something so difficult and being able to, as you're saying, refin find yourself all over again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and get some the perspective of distance and learning things uh I never knew I needed to learn. I guess they weren't even in my book. So But you know where as as difficult as all that was, I am so fortunate to have learned it when I was sixty-five instead of eighty-five. You know, 'cause uh we were we had these expectations of our senior years uh who would be there for us and you know and so we have a whole new tribe. Yay. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You definitely find who your tribe is through your journey, don't you? Because there's a lot of things that come and go, there's good, there's the bad, but we really find ourselves and the people who are supposed to be with us during that journey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I have read a lot of people say this and I have come to believe it that less is better. The smaller your drive, the better it is. That is my experience.
SPEAKER_01So the story that you put into our anthology was absolutely amazing, and I I want to thank you very much for that, Kathleen, because it is it's it's something to be able to write about the people in our lives, and sometimes it's it's a very emotional journey for all of us. But I think at the same time it's a very healing aspect and it helps so many other people around us because then they start seeing that they're not alone. And I think that the anthology is really going to show that to people is that we all go through our own journeys. They're not the same as anybody else's. There may be similarities to other people's, but it shows us that we are unique individuals and it's okay for the things that we do go through. I think it makes us almost better people.
SPEAKER_02Oh, uh definitely. I I definitely agree with you. Yes. And with these things, uh like I wrote this, I don't know I don't know how my words are gonna help somebody, but I'm really grateful if they do. Yeah, if one person is able to say, Oh, thank you, then yay.
SPEAKER_01I completely agree. If we can inspire one person, I think that we've done our job. So thank you so much for believing in the mission of Adivas at care and being a part of this anthology with us.
SPEAKER_02Oh well, I'm just I was honored to be invited. Thank you. It is my pleasure.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna have to do some more things in the future here, Kathleen. It's been way too long.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, uh keep me in mind. I'm I'm retired now. I just play in my studio and you know, some days I feel like doing other stuff.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome. I love it. I love it so much. So thank you again for being a part of this anthology. I can't wait for our listeners to go and check that out. And for our listeners, we're having a pre-release sale right now, so you might want to go check that out on Kindle and Kobo on May the 9th. We're actually gonna be launching our book, and that's gonna be available on a soft copy, so you can go and check that out too. It's amazing. It it happens so quickly. It was a I think it was meant to be, you know, coming out right before Mother's Day. All those mothers out there to be inspired.
SPEAKER_02And if there's any kinks in the process, it's Mercury has just went retrograde, so you know.
SPEAKER_01You're not the first person to say that to me today. That's awesome. Well, Kathleen, again, it has been a pleasure chatting with you here. And I'm looking forward to chatting with you again soon.
SPEAKER_02Sounds great, Candace. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome. And a huge shout out to all of our listeners. Please share this with all your friends and family. We're so excited about this anthology. I know that there's going to be so many women around the world that are going to be inspired by it. I have your children read it too because it is really good. There's a lot of tips in there. We added some other cool little things for to be really interactive. Thanks again, Kathleen. Thanks to all of our listeners, and I hope that each and every one of you have an amazing day.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening. So we're brought to you by DeepSpair. Connect with us on Facebook, on Instagram, and of course on deepfair.com or you can subscribe to our network.