I can’t say I remember much
about my young childhood years. It seems
like they would have been fun. My
parents really wanted a second child, and my sister really wanted a younger
sister, so I have heard I was well adored and spoiled with much love and affection.
Yet the parts of my childhood
I seem to remember more vividly are my adolescent years. My sister went off to college. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. After a
long battle, she died.
I wasn’t completely aware of
the magnitude of these events. Only in retrospect do I identify the shift that
took place.
I felt lost. I felt alone.
I was terribly disconnected.
While I had good friends, I
did not know how to talk about all that was going on inside of me. My family did not talk about it.
I missed my mom terribly and worried
about my family. I worried that more of the
people I loved would leave me. I worried
whether or not I was “good enough.” I
worried about life, and I worried about death.
At some point I felt
mystically led into therapy. I was skeptical - how could talking help? But, I needed to talk and I needed someone to
listen, even if they seemed a stranger.
It was frustrating, at first,
and hard to wrench out my hurts and fears and suffering.
Yet, this stranger became a
trusted companion. My sense of person and
my losses were known, valued and cared about, which led me to trusting and
valuing myself.
I understand better now - when
we stay silent in grief and in our suffering, it turns into isolation, shame,
insecurity and doubt.
When we speak to someone who
has an empathic ear and our best interest at heart, an amazing type of healing
begins. Sadness becomes a
tenderness. Hurt becomes part of
humanity. A security and maturity
forms. Resilience. Buds of life begin to grow and take shape.
So much of this world can
lead us into isolation, and at times despair.
There is sickness and death - and even worse, there is the cruelty of so many types of abuse
and violence. The unfair losses and
wounds that exist in this world make any type of reckoning seem
impossible.
Yet, it happens. Women and men find within themselves a
resilient spirit, a desire to try to speak the unspeakable.
They seek connection.
We seek connection. To sit with another who is willing to hear
us, to name the truth and to care.
We acknowledge the dying and
we remark on the living. We hold on -
together.
-Anonymous
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