Tag: sorrow

• Die in peace.

  A horrifying thought flittered across my mind, “ I need to write a letter to my father,” and it is like a thorn that won’t leave me alone, a bug, a thought I can’t swipe away, or flick back to where it came.

  It arrived like an unwanted guest and refuses to leave until I entertain the idea.

  I am not sure I will send the letter or if I can write it, but it seems that just as I silently left my mother, I also stopped cold any interactions with my father on December 4, 2004.

  My letter to my mother had to inspire this thought.

  My body trembled in terror back then and I haven’t addressed this man in any way, other than honoring the feelings of wanting to remain far far away.

  I haven’t explored in writing the dynamics between him and I, instead letting the words abuse and rape gloss over and suffice.

  Just not sitting down in the middle of what that feels like to a little girl.

  What will I say?
  What needs to be said?
  What thread needs to be followed through to its completion?

  What is odd to me, is that I have never once thought of writing a letter to him, yet in the past I had a few letters started to my mother, but never ever have I begun one to him or even considered one, until today.

  And I even thought to the point of sending it and finding the address to my sister’s house where he lives.

  I am sure this is the natural progression that follows the one I sent my mother, although perhaps this could be one to both of them, the final good-bye, a swan song to my parents.

  Part of me is afraid to write this.
  There is a part of me that is afraid not to write it as well, for a gift may get left there unopened.

  Many years ago I began a letter but it so enraged me I had to
  stop.

  Is there something I feel needs to be said to give me peace?

  I wonder if the swan sings to die in peace?

  December 2, 2010

  breaking, child, estranged, letters, pain, parents, peice, rage, saying, silence, sorrow, swan song, voicing, writing, your

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• Hand and Hand.

  All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

  Somehow I missed the melancholy of change, the loss, the death of one life, in order to be in a new life.

  And felt that I was doing change wrong, for I was sad as I changed.

  Leaving behind myself I had known for 46 years, I grieved losing that part of me, as I embraced a change that would become the new me.

  In the case of divorcing my parents, I had to the let the daughter in me die. There now stands a hole where daughter use to be.

  My daughter role is no more.

  You forget to remember the old you is gone, like a phantom limb it takes awhile to feel the new normal, and there is a grieving period, where sorrow can arise in odd places, unannounced sadness pours out.

  That view of self is unrecognizable for a while, you feel strange to yourself inside, and your movements are awkward for you don’t really know what it is the new you will do.

  Even when change is for the better, for a healthier you, you still have to let go and let die the old you.
  For some reason I kept forcing my thoughts to look towards the good things, and felt like I was a failure when I looked back and grieved.

  Now I know that grieving is a natural part of change.

  And with the overwhelming amount of change I have experienced in the last 5, well almost 6 years, it is no wonder that there has been lots to grieve.

  Who knew change and grieving go hand and hand…

  December 1, 2010

  changes, death, dying, grief, growth, life, melancholy, natural, New, old, roles, self, shame, sorrow

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• Love Sorrow, By Mary Oliver

  Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
  take care of what has been
  given. Brush her hair, help her
  into her little coat, hold her hand,
  especially when crossing the street. For, think,

  what if you should lose her? Then you would be
  sorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
  would be yours. Take care, touch
  her forhead that she feel herself not so

  utterly alone. And smile, that she does not
  altogether forget the world before the lesson.
  Have patience in abundance. And do not
  ever lie or ever leave her even for a moment

  by herself, which is to say, possibly, again,
  abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,
  sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.
  And amazing things can happen. And you may see,

  as the two of you go
  walking together in the morning light, how
  little by little she relaxes; she looks about her;
  she begins to grow.
  Mary Oliver

  I love how she writes about sorrow as being a child, a part of you to love
  and care for, instead of trying to shove it away, or change it somehow, rather bring it along gently and with patience and understanding.

  I believe each of our emotions would be better treated this way.
  To walk along with each allowing them to express themselves as need be.
  Until they grow into wisdom of lifes experience.

  Thanks Mary Oliver for expressing sorrow in these words.

  October 27, 2010

  Mary Oliver, Poems, Red Bird, sorrow

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• A Willing Witness

  “…grateful for your willingness to witness our loss” is part of a sentence I read on Facebook tonight, which struck me as odd that there are two kinds of witnesses.

   

  I never thought that there could be willing witnesses and non-willing witnesses.

   

  Yet the two drastically different witnesses are exactly what I have experienced. 

   

  One is so courageous and brave, will stand by and allow you to express the darkest of fears, the emptiest of sorrows, will listen endlessly as the truth flows and the madness is wrung from your soul and not shudder and turn away.

   

  A willing witness treads into the deepest trauma’s the most anxious anxieties, and wades through sorrows crushing blows, and still is able to remain connected, eyes, ears and soul.

   

  A willing witness never turns away. 

   

  It is this courageous witness that allows us to stand taller, dig deeper and find a small thread to continue on.  They remind us we are not alone.  That our mental state is ‘normal’ coming from whence we came.

   

  I am blessed and forever grateful for my brother who has been my most willing of willing witnesses.

   

  I also have had willing witnesses that are friends, strangers, writers, renewed old friends and new friends. Ladies whose walk equals mine or are even much worse. I am filled with great warmth and loving energy knowing that I have so many wonderfully willing witnesses.

   

  The greatest gift we can give another is to be a willing witness.

  September 3, 2010

  energy, grateful, grief, life, mental, pain, sadness, sorrow, suffering, witness

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• “Learning To Play Well With Others!”

  “Thanks for not yelling at me too much this past year and hopefully it will be even less in the year to come”, is written in one of my Mother’s Day cards.

   

  I felt great pleasure in knowing that my child acknowledges my improvements and believes that I can improve more again next year.

   

  As a mother who wasn’t able to control my rage this is a huge sign of healing, for my targets are feeling less hits, and the volatile pressure has lessened according to them.

   

  The legacy has begun to weaken, the link of dysfunction is unraveling, the image of normal is arising, while the destruction has dropped.

   

  I felt much sadness both for the child and the parent as I absorbed this information. 

   

  I wept for the helplessness of both, for I had been on both sides, neither is a winner.

   

  It is a rare event for a broken mother to heal, for a broken mother to see her brokenness and to bare witness to the cost of her wound upon her child.

   

  The broken mother’s suffering lands upon the life of the child, and it seems the more we hurt the more we hurt!

   

  The cycle goes around and around until someone gets out of the way.

   

  In my case I had to walk away.  And in walking away, I was able to see my own brokenness.

   

  Now I am able to see where the cracks are mending, where I am becoming a better mother, with the potential of becoming an even better one up ahead. 

   

  What a great Mother’s Day for a broken mom, to be shown examples of healing, like getting a report card with improvement noted; “Learning to play well with others!”

   

  May 9, 2010

  broken mom, dysfunctional mother, healing, hurting children, improvement, sorrow, suffering

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