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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Forget Past Mistakes and Go Forward (Bell Syndicate WNU Service.) A co-executor of my husband's estate, who loved my stepdaughter's mother, appears afraid that I am not going to discharge my duties regarding little Doris, tie questions her before me as to her comfort and happiness. LIFE BEGINS NOW Why waste precious time and effort on regret and self-recrimination? self-recrimination? That won't bring back lost opportunity. You can do nothing about changing the past, but your attitude toward it may have a lot to do with determining your future. Here is a letter from a woman in a particularly particular-ly trying position, forced to devote her life to another woman's child, while her own twp children grow up without a mother. To meet and solve a problem like that, says Kathleen Norris, takes "character," "char-acter," that certain something that enables a woman to forget for-get the past and go ahead from the present moment. By KATHLEEN NORRIS TO SAY that a woman has "character" is always to pay her a compliment. All sorts of good things are wrapped up in that one word. One thing all women of character have in common, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, famous or obscure. ob-scure. They have learned to go ahead from the present moment. . Here is part of a letter from a woman whose past is full of mistakes. mis-takes. "I am a college graduate," writes Kathryn. "I come of a good family and ought to be able to boast an average intelligence. But I am in real trouble now, and don't know just how to get myself out of it. I've made a series of mistakes, but surely there is some way back to happiness for me, a quiet little home and the company of my little son and daughter? own adored small son and daughter daugh-ter are growing up without their mother. Worries Over Mistakes. "Paul, of course, had no premonition premo-nition that he would die so young. Normally, he would have expected to be with me until Doris reached young womanhood. But this is the situation, and I don't know what to do. I worry over my own mistakes and the dreadful 'might-have-beens' until I am a nervous wreck, and I simply cannot and will not see myself my-self spending the next 10 or 12 years acting as nurse, cook, resident governess gov-erness and guard to a little girl that really, in my heart, I don't like. Please offer me any suggestions, no matter how unflattering, that occur to you." Well, Kathryn, the first thing to do is determine to go ahead and not backward, from now on. Whatever mistakes you have made are made, and whatever conditions you have created actually exist, and there's no use crying about them. Tomorrow, Tomor-row, and not yesterday, ought to be the object of your planning, for nothing noth-ing will change yesterday. But tomorrow to-morrow anything may happen! I don't know all the circumstances, circum-stances, from this one letter, but it seems to me highly possible that you might handle the situation this way: Go to see the sympathetic, fine mother-in-law and tell her that Paul is dead and that you are going to find work to support yourself. Since you two were once close, friends, and since she held her son responsible for most of the difficulties difficul-ties that separated you, she may easily ask you to visit her for awhile. Consideration Is Welcome. "I was married at 20, 13 years ago, to a man whose temperament was utterly unsuited to mine. We had a boy and a girl, tried again and again to get along because of the children, and finally were divorced di-vorced six years ago. I was living with my husband's mother, a fine good woman, at the time, and stayed on with her when Tony married mar-ried his stenographer and went to Mexico to act as superintendent in a mine. Little Tony and Mary-Lou went to school across the street. Married Ber Doctor. "Three years ago my doctor, a widower with a daughter, eight years old, asked me to marry him. Paul was in every way a fine man and after a talk with my mother-in-law it was arranged that for the present my children should stay with her, as Paul's offices and home were in one apartment, and to move to larger quarters would have injured in-jured his business. His little girl, Doris, lived with us from the first. She is a nice child, now 11, but not particularly responsive or affectionate. affec-tionate. "Paul and I had had less than two years of perfect happiness when he was killed last summer. He left me a modest income, between $1,400 and $1,500 a year, and he left me Doris. She has no one else in the world. Naturally she is too young to appreciate the constant responsibility responsi-bility and sacrifice that the care of her, and the careful managing I have to do, mean to me.. She takes it all for granted; comes and goes cheerfully in our two-room apartment; helps a little -with dishes and dusting; already f lives a life of her own. My co- executor of Paul's estate is a man who loved Doris' mother and ap- If she does, make yourself quietly invaluable. Be everything to her and her old sister. Consideration is welcomed in any household, and honest flattery is very sweet to older old-er women. It is highly possible that you will be asked to stay, to lift some of the responsibility of two lively youngsters from her shoulders; shoul-ders; children of 8 and 10 need a lot ; of policing, and in a family with no servant they represent a lot of actual actu-al hard work. You might stay on as a sort of working housekeeper, or you might get a job near by. Then go to the old friend who is so anxious about Doris' welfare and suggest that he and his wife take her on for awhile, or find a good boarding school and take her for vacations. Turn over to him almost your entire income, and express a lively and affectionate concern for Paul's daughter, but explain that your own children need you, and thus escape to reclaim all the joy of your lost motherhood. pears always to be afraid that I am not going to discharge my full duties regarding Doris. He questions ques-tions her before me as to her comfort com-fort and happiness. Does she get enough to eat? She has blankets enough? He then tells me about my predecessor, her mother. "Meanwhile my first husband's mother has moved to a sister's house in a town about 50 miles away. Once again my children are safe and happy and in good schools. I am welcome to see them whenever I care to, but the truth is that I cannot often afford to pay the railway rail-way fare, taxi fares, and for the little gifts I want to take them. So I am placed in the preposterous position po-sition of spending all my time and energy to take care of the child of a woman I never saw, while my |
