Tag: Parenting

Out of loss grows hope…

Hope!

A four letter word. But such a powerful one. True hope, is just that true hope.

Loss devastates us in many ways, yet it is not the end and the all of things. It can be of course but it certainly doesn’t have to be.

Today was for me a difficult day. I attended my dear grandmother’s funeral. I said goodbye to the most important person of my childhood. Yes you ready correctly, the most important person of my childhood. My Grandma was more important and influential than either of my parents. My Grandma was that safe person that every human needs.

You see, my immediate family life is a sordid tale. There are no need for details except that the result is that I now have zero connection with either my actual mother or father or either of my two sisters. It is a difficult and often painful reality.

A result of this sordid past is that I have always struggled with a positive self-worth and in particular an ability to have confidence that things I create, produce, write etc are of any worth.

Today on this day of loss, I was able to stand tall and allow hope to not just grow but to blossom. Over the past few months, I have seen the planting of hope, the cultivating and care of hope in me by some very wonderful friends. Today that care and cultivation was harvested. A blossoming hope sprung forth.

I stood today and read before an a full church building words I had written to eulogize my very special Grandma. I stood before this church with both my sisters and my father and my mother, who all refuse to speak to me, who all belittled me throughout my formative years, with them, sitting in the very front row.

I stood tall today and I read those words and celebrated the life of my Grandma. And those words were powerful words. They were words that brought forth joy, memory, and pathos in the heart and minds of those that heard them.

Hope blossomed in my heart today. As I stood and spoke those words. As I stood in the face of self-doubt and insecurity and I spoke those words. I stood in the face of

knowing there was a front row who were furious that I was there and believe wholeheartedly I had no right.

Hope blossomed forth from my heart today as numerous people thanked me for those words, and some, even quoted me back to me. Hope blossomed from my soul today in the midst of immense pain and loss.

I spent several hours today for the first time in many years in the same room as my immediate family and did not question my right to be there, did not question the validity of me being there. In the midst of loss today I stood tall and proud in honouring my special grandmother.

In the midst of pain, in the midst of grief and in the midst of loss, my words spoke for me, my writing did wonderful things.

In the midst of loss, hope springs forth, hope that I will not amount to nothing but will be someone wonderful and valuable.

Hope blossoms in the midst of pain and loss. It blossoms and repairs relationships fractured and halted for many years, through ignorance, assumption and fear. Hope blossomed forth today and seared my heart with goodness.

Hope just a small four letter word, yet, not so small after all.

regrounded

Our senses are not just about what we like to eat, fragrances we like or don’t there is far more at play than this. Most of us can name the five senses. But hang on what if I told you there were not five senses but more than five. I’d like to introduce or remind you to the vestibular and the proprioception senses.

Our vestibular is about how we experience balance in our world and the proprioception is about the place of our body in the world. Obviously this is a very simplified explanation but it suffices for this particular post. In order to be really grounded we need all of these senses to be considered. If not we will experience sensory issues and this is particularly an issue for autistic people.

This post is more about a different kind of grounding, an emotional and peaceful connection with the world we inhabit. Just as one needs the physical senses to be in play in order to be grounded and able to be at their best so they need to have internal and intangible grounding in order.

The last week has been a somewhat ungrounding experience. I discovered that my dearly loved grandmother is dying. As she is in another state I felt it pretty darn important to get in the car and see her.

I was majorly ungrounded when I saw her. A shock to my system of experiencing the strong formidable and wonderful grandma who was my safe and loving and caring woman lying in a bed awaiting the shrugging off of her mortal coil was a shocking and destabilising experience.

I was in need of connecting emotionally with some special places. I chose to travel today to the first childhood home I really remember. It has been 40 years since setting foot on this property. It was nothing less than an amazing experience. 40 or so years ago I sat and played on this dirt patch with my bruncle. There I am on the right. You can see joy on my face. My bruncle would soon be lost to me after this moment and traumatic times would ensue.

Closure around this place and what happened there has never been able to occur. Today I visited this place again, I walked this earth. I wandered this property. I looked at these walls, I looked at this exact place. It was a highly charged moment. Tears welled and thoughts roved around my head.

Forty years seem a long time to leave something hanging. I guess in a sense it is. There have been many, many things over the course of living that I have reflected upon and worked through. Yet the loss that occurred at this place was not one of them.

The loss of my bruncle was something I was deeply traumatized by as a child, and something that I had inadvertently taken on some level of responsibility for and certainly was something that supplied a massive level of fear of the same occurring to me as a child.

Something happened in my heart and soul and spirit today as I walked these places. Something changed that realigned, reground my emotional systems. Enabled me to take ownership of some things without them taking ownerships of me.

I was able to take ownership of the truth that yes I am indeed my father’s son. And that means just that, and only that. It does not believe as I have allowed myself to feel that I am the embodiment and repeat of my father. No that is just ludicrous rubbish.

I have in fact received genetic material, mitochondria and chromosomes and other chemicals and genetic material. This has an impact on who I am, obviously from both my mother and my father. An example of this is being autistic. I see this played out in my offspring also.

The point is though it does not mean I will become who he is. It does not mean I must fear that in myself or in my parenting of my children. I have inherited genetic stuff, I have not inherited his choices. I have not inherited his experiences, I have not inherited his consequences.

Yes I am my father’s son. Yes I will make my life and walk onward as his son making his very own way in this big wide world in which I walk.