Hung up in the decisions

Yesterday I gave my dad permission that he didn't need (but seemed to want) to buy a small electric skillet with a non-stick surface on sale at Shopko. Apparently my mom did not approve of non-stick surfaces. My sister and I discovered the current electric skillet in their kitchen is quite large, uncoated, and doesn't work worth diddly. My mom was a wonderful person, but she had very black/white opinions on absolutely everything from the most trivial on up. If you lived with someone for fifty-five years who told you to cut the ring of sausage into 3/16" pieces to fry for breakfast, you might find yourself a bit adrift. Dad may find he is free to make quite different choices now. He may also find that lots of choices aren't nearly so earth-shakingly important anymore. How important is it???

It was a huge relief to me when someone commented about one of my agonized decisions, that the selection would "never be seen from a galloping horse." Fritzi had the gift of knowing what made her really happy. I hope through all this grief we can find some peace in making easy choices about the small stuff, and find some clarity about what's really the big stuff.