Category: The Hard Stuff

Daughter's seemingly impossible travel wish helps Valerie Hartman shift to yes from always automatically saying no.
Guest Blog, Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn, Overcoming Obstacles, Parenting, The Hard Stuff

Guest Blogger: The Gift Of Shifting Into Yes

(Note from Daryn: Guest Blogger Valerie Hartman stops into DarynKagan.com to share her big lesson about shifting into yes. Instead of always thinking something isn’t possible, maybe, just maybe it is.) It started in the spring of 2015.   My daughter casually mentioned a conversation she had recently had with her Dad.  She told me that he wanted to take her to Paris on one of their next scheduled trips (spoiler alert-we are divorced-not the most amicable-but have figured out how

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Judge Amber Wolf of Louisville, Kentucky makes an exception and allows an inmate to meet his baby son for the first time.
Family, Kindness, Parenting, The Hard Stuff, Uplifting Stories

Judge Allows Inmate To Meet Baby Son For First Time

An exception, a rare act of compassion for an inmate. A man who happens also to be a new father. This is nothing they teach you in law school. Or how to be a judge. Still, Louisville, Kentucky Judge Amber Wolf calls this “probably one of the best things I’ve ever done.” Judge Wolf pushed aside typical procedures and allowed inmate James Roeder to meet his one-month old son for the first time. WDRB.com reports that both Roeder and his

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How my mother shocked me with news of a secret love in one of our final moments together.
Daryn's Blog, Family, Parenting, The Hard Stuff

How My Mother Shocked Me In One Of Our Final Moments Together

Leave it to my mom to depart this world with an incredible story. A surprise. A mystery. This one unfolded during the early morning hours in her darkened hospital room in the days before she passed a few weeks ago. Just me and her. Oh, how I’m thankful for those stolen private moments available only because the nurses offered me the couch and some blankets to spend the night in my mother’s room. Moments to write down all that she

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Granting my mother's final wish as she declined further treatment for two brain tumors, strokes and lymphoma.
Daryn's Blog, Family, Parenting, The Hard Stuff

Granting My Mother’s Final Wish

I wonder if they know how ridiculous they sound. Those doctors. The ones trying to sell my mother on further treatment. How do you convince a woman months away from her 80th birthday that she should sign up a cacophony of torture? “We can put in a feeding tube for a couple of weeks,” their pitch began. “We’ll send you to a nursing home where you’ll be connected to an IV, sit in diapers, and wait. If you do well

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When your friend's mom dies and she's so much more than your friend's mom.
Daryn's Blog, Family, Friendship, The Hard Stuff

When Your Friend’s Mom Is So Much More Than Just Your Friend’s Mom

Please help me. I need a word. A word we don’t have in English. One that we really need. That I need. Today. For today is a sad day. My friend’s mom has passed away. A woman I’ve known more than 30 years. A woman who has made me laugh. Made me feel loved. A woman who has suffered with illness far too long. So, perhaps, it is not sad that she is gone, That chapter closed. But it is

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Daryn's Blog, Family, The Hard Stuff

Why It Only Took 24 Seconds For My Daughter To Make Me Cry

I might as well go ahead and tell you. Self-report. Spill. If I don’t, surely, you’ll hear about it from my daughter. Same daughter who is about to become a senior in high school. Same daughter I thoroughly embarrassed this week. It all started with an invitation I never saw coming. “My senior class pictures are Tuesday and I think you should come with me,” she casually threw out a few days before. Apparently, this is quite the deal at

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JetBlue flight attendants went above and beyond showing compassion to a grandmother heading to Orlando for her grandson's funeral after he was killed in the Pulse nightclub massacre.
Family, Great Giving, The Hard Stuff, Travel, Uplifting Stories

Orlando Victim’s Grandmother Gets Amazing, Compassionate Treatment Onboard JetBlue Flight

It’s the flight no grandmother should have to take. When the grandmother of one of the victim’s of the Orlando nightclub massacre got onboard a JetBlue flight to go to her grandson’s funeral, the flight attendants made sure she was surrounded with love and compassion. Flight attendant Kelly Davis Karas shared on her Facebook page that she and her fellow workers were moved to find out Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo’s grandmother was onboard their flight heading to Orlando. They set some things

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Daryn's Blog, The Hard Stuff

Facebook Posts-Yeah, I Said This About The Orlando Massacre

Millions have had their say about the massacre early Sunday morning at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Here are a couple of my thoughts, just in case we’re not connected on Facebook. And we can always spend more time together with my book, “Hope Possible: A Network News Anchor’s Thoughts On Losing Her Job, Finding Love, A New Career, And My Dog, Always My Dog.”

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When you wonder what else can go wrong in your life after a series of challenges.
Overcoming Obstacles, The Hard Stuff

When You Wonder What Else Can Go Wrong

I’m no doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. Yet, I’m about to make a bold diagnosis. Because I know a case of this when I see it. A case of “What Else-itis.” My friend, Tricia, has it right now. A freakish house fire burned down half her home last Fall. The company where she works has been bought, so her job is about to go away. Did I mention her husband has filed for divorce? Oh, and last

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Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn, Overcoming Obstacles, The Hard Stuff

The Three Words That Brought Me Peace

The decks have cleared. In the life of a woman whom I’ve never met, Yet who felt compelled to share her story with me. Folks do that. I guess that’s the gift I get for sharing my bumpy road to happy here on these pages. A gift I love. She shared how her career had soared among some of the highest positions in Washington. How once she was the youngest this. The most accomplished that. And then, Seemingly, Suddenly she

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