Traveling TV exec’s job filled with adventure
In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional…
Image by tapperboy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This image is available for purchase from here as a blank greeting card, matted print, laminated print, mounted print, canvas print or as a framed print.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note for first time readers…
This may start off as being a bit of a tough read but if you stick with it you’ll see things do improve, there may be something in reading this that might prove helpful to you or to someone you know. (updates may be added from time to time).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the beginning…… (sortof)
Click here to listen to an interview of Australian Comedian Judith Lucy by Richard Fidler (lasts approx 52 minutes)
Well worth the listen 🙂 An emotional bouillabaisse – Judith Lucy
Reading a one page Judith Lucy interview in a sunday paper her talking about the falling out between her father and his two children shortly before his death was the catalyst, some years back, for my ringing to try and re-engage with my parents one more time.
I feel now a nice connection with Judith more so after listening to this interview. Judith Lucy like another Judith I know really rock as being people 🙂
November 6th, 2008
My Father died from cancer 31st October, 2008, just 39 kilometers from where I live. I rang my Aunt, his sister, on the morning he died but she withheld the news of his death from me. His funeral took place yesterday, Nov, 5, 2008. He lived 80 years on the earth. I was not invited into sharing in his life for the last 12 years hence…
I was not told about his passing until today (Nov 6, 2008) when My Aunt rang me back to tell me his funeral ceremony had been held the previous day. Consequently, I was not involved in any process in any way although I had asked to be considered for inclusion in some manner to be most simply, matter-of-factly re-instigated into the family as it was at that time which was when I was told he was in some way unwell, that was just a few weeks ago. I had no idea he was about to die after a not so brief period of time living/fighting against cancer.
Believing my siblings may have been on the receiving end of somewhat similar exclusionary treatment at the time I was let know that he was in someway unwell, I made an effort to deliver to them both the news.
I wanted that they should know if they did not already and that I now knew things were happening around him. To inform them that if they had a mind to, they should act quickly to involve themselves in the process that I believed was now in motion.
I have been estranged from my siblings around similar periods of time so I left no return contact phone number for them to reach me. I knew they both had the option to contact me, should they really desire to do so, through our Aunt who they know I have been in recent (last few years) contact with.
I have not had any word back from either sibling since passing along what I had come to learn, but they were in attendance at the funeral I now know.
I have been estranged from my parents (especially) since changing my name as one part of my first determined effort to get along with my life. This was after my writing both of them each a "personal" letter in 1997 asking each of them for some answers*1 to some very specific questions about the time we shared together while I lived and was raised under their roof. Questions asking after situations and events related to in those letters related primarily to their methods of raising of me and my siblings, notably, questions that only they could answer.
They had refused to answer anything other than cursory stuff when I had previously put to them some of the questions I later asked in the letters. At the time of face to face, I was pushing them to answer with openness with a view to get something sorted between us all. They pointedly stymied the process and there began leveling upon me personal insult, aspersion and denigration of character in tones and words chose mostly from my Mother, that was early in 1996.
My father quickly held up a newspaper calling the whole process finished, totally clamming up when he realised the answers I was seeking after to the questions I was asking.
My Mother waxed lyrical moments later about there really being no need to ask such questions, further telling me, there was simply no need for them to be answered either!
I believed that I still had somehow some remaining right to seek the answers I sought and a chance yet at getting them, if not by face to face contact then by some other means.
I sought out help to deal with the situation, I was directed to a Psychologist, we met and I spoke about what had happened recently and in the past, I was directed to read Toxic Parents*1.
I read the book, it rang true for me.
I acted as suggested by the book. I wrote to them both seeking answers still and enabling them both to be able to respond to them by using the one option remaining, the written word, to pointedly pass along to them both a statement and an account of my concerns, my truth.
I wrote to them each separate letters as I had different issues I wanted to discuss with each. I held the belief they might, singly or together, think on things I wrote about and decide to actively engage back with me. All I got in return was a of continuance of avoidance. Those letters are now in the keeping of my Sister?
I ended each letter with a stipulation that, considering their behaviour up till that point in time, I had taken some steps to make it sure and legal that if they had any thoughts to intrude into my personal relationship, were I to become unwell and unable to fend for myself, their approaches would be met with legal opposition from my partner as was my wish and that he would hold the decision to let them approach or not.
I believed that with it went unstated but assumed and understood by them that if they carried no negative intent at such a juncture then there’d be no need for my partner to proceed enacting my wishes.
Wisdom tells me now that assumptions are not worth the paper they’re written on.
Each letter was sealed and hand delivered into their separate hands addressed separately, they were Confidential Letters that is… for their eyes only.
I realised after sending them their letters that they were my loudest and turns out the most final cry for basic familial recognition and general acceptance.
I had ended both letters with the same statement essentially that I was going to be getting on with my life without them as that was what my understanding of their attitudes towards me was it was therefore the only apparent way to proceed, they of course always had a choice remaining,to engage or not after that point.
They chose the easy road, to move completely out of my life at that point, I got no reply back other than that. Neither of them ever spoke to me nor I to them again after that point. Not what I had hoped after but what was for each their answer never the less. Nothing else I could fathom to do to change that situation.
My Mother died suddenly a couple of years later. I found out she had died around two years after that. It was when I bit that blasted bullet again and rang them to talk over the phone, to try, not for the first time but, for what turned out to be the last time, to seek engagement from them directly, to somehow, work through our differences.
No one from the family, in the two years since her passing, had taken the time to find out if I even knew she had died.
My Fathers new wife answered the phone and a short time later she came to the task of informing me of my Mother’s passing. She and I arranged to meet, to talk, in two days time, she never kept the appointment, we have not spoken since not for my want of trying.
After she failed to materialise I tried ringing her but each time my Father answered her mobile, I was naturally somewhat reticent at that point to talk to him, I just hung up without speaking a word..
A week after my initial call I got a brief note in the mail, my father, saying he had no idea why I had phoned, that I had made my Mother’s last few years a living hell but then went on then to wish me all the best with my future!
So, he’s passed away now and this time around my name has been purposefully left off the funeral announcement and as I’m now aware nor is my name included in any Notices of Appreciation in any of the local or wider flung newspapers either.
No one closely or not so closely related to me from my immediate or not so immediate family considered going against his wishes to reach out to inform me, in a timely manner, of his passing. Nor of the impending funeral, nor to take the time or make any effort to contact me, to offer me at least the opportunity to attend the funeral.
Yes, I will be working hard at gaining a deeper understand of how that’s OK behaviour from folks who, although we have had our differences, seem to see themselves as upstanding people, a family even? Beats the heck out of my concept for what constituents loving family behaviour!
Since finding out about my Mother’s passing some two years after the event I have spent time, rightly so, coming to terms with my grief and loss and the treatment*2 mettered out to me by my Parents and siblings and their families. So, tonight I find I’m a lot better at handling this latest turn of events.
I’ve toasted his passing with a glass of Cab Sav shared with my partner of 22 years and a longtime friend after making them dinner of Vietnamese Stir-Fry Bok Choy followed with home-made Gramma Pie and Ice Cream.
I will put this here for now publicly as I feel such a need, my understanding as to why I need to I am not fully conversant with at this time so I will, conversely, take it down if I feel there’s the a further need, as is _my_ choice.
For the moment, I will not sit quietly and wear such insult as I believe that it is that I am supposed to but still, without good reason. I have fought too hard for too long to gain my self respect.
My meditation*8 tomorrow will be directed to inviting understanding, acceptance and dealing with unfinished business…
For those who comment with support, while this image holds as public viewing.
I deeply appreciate your presence of mind in doing so.
Nov 17, 2008
I was told by a woman who attended the funeral that my brother mentioned my name in a speech he gave during the service. I thank him for this concession.*4
My father is cremated. I don’t know what will be done with the ashes.
I have made contact via the Salvation Army Officers who are connected with my Fathers wife, who were instrumental in some large way with his funeral service, to represent me to her, in good time to ask her to arrange a copy of my Fathers will into my hands. I understand by Australian Law that I have the legal right as a child of the deceased, no matter the personal circumstances between us at the time of death, to be given a copy of any existing will. How I will be at the moment I read what it contains I have no idea. I feel the need to see it to be able to move on in some way. If I’m disinherited then I’ll deal with that then and won’t truly know how I will respond until I read what is written.
On the day that my Father was being buried I found myself thinking about how things were at the time. I did not know he had already died. I found out the following day I had been purposefully kept uninformed about that family business by the one lone relative I had sought re-engagement with these last few years. They had told me only very recently that they would keep me informed of any news and changes. It was they who would the next day come to inform me of the funeral having been carried out the day before despite their previous undertaking to share information. Not knowing he’d already died I was thinking about my fathers impending demise and what that would mean to me in the future. I came to an understanding.
I had still more grieving yet to do, further unfinished business to work through and as it was tending towards being that no one from my family was looking to be there positively in league with me throughout the process then I’d have to do as I’ve always done, survive it by taking up the challenge without their support, despite my perception of the situation’s continued measure of unfairness.
I’d seen a short article in the local press a few days earlier calling people to attention of an upcoming two day seminar, a Facing Death from the Buddhist Perspective, Embracing Life Workshop.
I thought the timing was perfect. I enrolled and now have a space reserved for me.
Facing Death Workshop*3 (Text copied from pdf attached to confirmation email I received)
"To inspire a quiet revolution in the whole way we look at death and the care for the dying, and the whole way we look at life and the care for the living.” (Sogyal Rinpoche)
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Facing Death
from the Buddhist Perspective
Embracing Life
Two Day Seminar with Judy Arpana
Long-term student of Sogyal Rinpoche (author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)
This ‘life changing’ seminar will challenge attitudes to loss, death and dying and compel you to live your life more fully.
Reflect on the difficulties of your life’s journey and address any unfinished business.
Explore the importance of funerals and rituals (particularly practical aspects).
Gain insight into how Tibetan Buddhism can help you face death and dying. Increase your capacity for joy and forgiveness.
Judy Arpana has been a counsellor for over 20 years, specialising in grief and loss. She has extensive experience in conducting training workshops for staff and volunteers in hospitals, community settings, aged care facilities and hospices throughout Australia and Europe. Judy has been a student of Buddhism for 25 years and has studied with many Buddhist masters. Her workshops explore the meaning of life and death, and she brings to these challenging themes the gift of ‘extraordinary ordinariness’.
Topics that will be discussed
Motivation, Grief & Loss, Practical Advice re Wills & Funerals, Impermanence & Change, Transforming Suffering, Spiritual Preparation for Death, Dying Process, Basic Meditation, Reflective Practices, Reflective Practices, Unfinished Business & Forgiveness.
November 23rd, 2008
Home from attending the workshop/Seminar *3 "Facing Death from the Buddhist Perspective, Embracing Life".
Huge thanks to Judy Arpana and the Byron Bay Buddhists who made this weekend come into being and also to the people who attended there and shared their inspiring realities, their pains and joys.
What can I say? The whole weekend, the whole experience was amply delivering.
Awareness aided by meditation I’m happy to adopt as a means to a better now.
Live each day as if it was your last.
Help is out there.*4
Yeah!
🙂
Nov 29, 2008
Click here to listen to an interview of Australian Comedian Judith Lucy by Richard Fidler
Well worth the listen 🙂
Reading about the falling out between her and her father shortly before his death was the catalyst some years back for my ringing to try and re-engage with my parents again.
I feel now a definite connection with Judith more so after listening to this interview. Judith Lucy like another Judith I know really rock as people 🙂
Dec 2, 2008
Yesterday I again rang the Salvation Army Captain who played a large part in the funeral of my father and found out they had approached my Fathers wife at my request a couple of weeks ago asking if she and I could be in some sort of communication. They had not rung me so I assumed they may not have managed contact with my fathers wife.
I found out she’d been contacted and that she was apparently ok for contact of some sort to occur.
Having been held away as I have been in one way or another I was wondering now what, if anything awaited me next thinking the only immediate process left to conclude now would be the witnessing and acting upon a will if there was one.
In the beginning, shortly after finding out he’d died and his funeral ceremony having been carried out. I was consumed with ‘getting’ something anything, after the shock of finding out about such playing out of the situation.
I found myself thinking that ‘a few lousy bucks’ would satisfy that need. Things change though and it emerged to me that my anger was doing the talking.
I seek still what I’ve always sought and financially, although I have a need it is other than money that I seek help with obtaining.*4 I seek help towards putting right so many wrongs is more the truth. I decided to push on with things then to hasten the process as time is short for being unhappy when the few remaining things that are needing my attention are declining in number. So I seek to lessen them to none. To get to the other side of the process, my forgiving of others, asking it from them even without approaching them to ask them if it’s potentially upsetting to do so and from myself and also giving it to myself
I had found out I should expect to have a copy of any will forwarded to me and had asked that be passed along to my fathers wife believing her the be the executor asking that it be made to happen soon as possible if no one had already set to with the process. I wanted to have things finished sooner than later having dragged on for so many years.
With both my parents dead and no family coming forward weeks after the funeral I felt there was going to be little chance of any heartening family experiences coming into being.
I wanted, I guess, to see if there was anything in it for me, not so much financially in it but more as a hope of reading or hearing a final explanation from my father for the way things went so far as he was concerned, my being shunned as it is and why he might have been unable to concede an inch of ground to me no matter how much I tried for it to happen.
That his widowed wife had been contacted on my behalf a notable time before but had not contacted me since spoke in no way positively of what I might expect or hope to hear from her.
I rang and as no one answered left a phone message with a number to contact me on.
I was rung this morning, December 2, 2008.
The distance between us became huge as she made it clear to me that she and I were not family in the first instance.
The suggestion I could contact a particular solicitor for a copy of my fathers will was not avoided and I was given a name and a number to ring.
I’d rather have had other stuff to talk over with her but when attempting to I was, as has long been my treatment, met with a resistance or what could maybe be called an apparent lack of knowledge or a lack of awareness or concern even about most anything I seemed to ask after and a reluctance to discuss with me just about anything else besides. I was told it was my fathers wish I be held away for his dying and basics about the funeral. The only thing of consequence was that my Father had instructed I not be told anything about his dying and I was not to be told about the funeral process either.
That he is dead could now offer out new opportunities for new beginnings, fresh starts, but not everyone may see things that way now, or ever.
It has always come to me at such times as this that there emerges this uncomfortable awareness of a process happening without me where it seems, to me, that it is somehow ok with family and others to withhold discussing with me or supplying to me certain information yet at the same time it seems obvious that they and the rest of my family have easily enough managed to effect such communications between themselves.
edit: Upon reflection*5 I know more now about why this is and how I and all my family members came to "unwittingly" play their roles in setting this process into place. It’s was a survivalist but dysfunctional response to a traumatic childhood event. edit ends
My calls to be heard, to be given answers to the questions I asked over the years has only set me apart from them all in a most dramatic way. Me getting angry at such treatment has not helped either but anger I feel is an understandable emotion to surface considering the number of attempts I’ve made asking for communion with little or no return.
She (my stepmother) was clearly very uncomfortable with conversing over the phone and only stayed on the phone for as long as I tried to engage with her in conversation. I realised she was grieving too but that I might also be seemed of little consequence to her other than for touching upon it momentarily but, with a small token of compassion, for which I was happy, another small concession.
During the conversation I spoke to her about my sister. About how she and I as teenagers and as adults have ‘never’ been able to progress passed a point in our repeated comings together to reach a common acceptance of our differences. Why they might exist. Why when her anger rises at such times I find that all I am able to do is ask her repeatedly to take a moment to reconsider that anger in that moment but when that consideration is not forthcoming I find I’ve never been able to do more than to just warn of my intent to then carry it out by walking away from the situation. At those time and in the days following the situation turns, for me, towards being a huge sadness and huge frustration for her no doubt and for me a certain feeling of loss at my total inability to supply her any answers to the questions she asks me.
I feel she seeks similar answers to me and I hold that those answers should always have been forthcoming from our parents. I did not raise my sister.
I am 18 months older but that she is pained so is the best indication that our shared pain and suffering sets it out there that there has long been a case to be answered.
So, as I was not wanting to engage with her still as I understood that she remains out of sorts towards me, still. That my feeling about what might be her present situation had largely been confirmed to me as the present truth by the suggestions coming from others who could make such an informed assessment. I stated my desire to stay disengaged from her at this time.
I had recently learned that my sister and my fathers new wife had formed a close association and it was indeed acknowledged next in the conversation. I felt that as a relief. I sense my sister needs a mother as much in a way as I still need to have known both my parents as parents that she has someone similar in that regard can only be good for her.
I wished them both well with their connection accordingly and hoped it would deliver them both continuing good the more time that went by.
I left her with the suggestion she may wish to keep my phone number instead of destroying it as we’d discussed and as she said was going to do as I’d said I did not want it passed about freely right at this time.
I asked her to consider keeping it now in the hope that one day she might feel the desire to be back in touch with me, stranger things have happened.
The one thing she suggested I might do was to build a bridge to my Brother as a starting point.
I’d estranged myself from him and his wife some years ago when I had realised they’d had some two years to try contacting me about informing me of my mother’s passing and had not done so.
Asking them for an explanation I became angry and dramatically left off communications with them. Lose my contact details and stop praying for me too, it hasn’t done a bit of good to date, I told him as I hung up the phone. They conceded to my wishes.
Next, I rang the Solicitor whose name and phone number I had been given and there again met that familiar unsettling blankness on the other end of the phone?
Hard to not get riled when you speak into a phone and the other end returns silence, especially, from someone who you’ve never met!
Communication from him was hard won by me. I had to drag every word from his lips when I know he could have eased me through the task at hand him being, or should have been, aware that I was not outside any current law asking what I was asking but fairly within it.
In the end I had to seek from him that he at least understood that what I was saying that it was my understanding that I had some legal right to be given a copy of my fathers will and that I was not asking for anything that I was not legally entitled to.
That he might be representing the executor of the estate (no idea who that is) he might now need to clarify to them that it was a process they need to follow and was not about personalities and personal differences but simply acting upon a request I’d made governed by a legal right I had.
I stressed I was not wishing to upset others but found myself flabbergasted that again I was having to push for every inch of ground that others were so at ease to hold back from me.
I believe he understood what I was saying in the end so I expect a copy of my Fathers will to arrive here sooner than later now.
Reading what is written in it will be a decisive moment for me I have no doubt, having survived a number of them in my life before this I will no doubt survive this one.
I rang my Brother tonight. He spoke but not with much enthusiasm in his voice, he hung up twice when he made it known he felt the conversation was not going where he felt it should go.
We have things needing discussion it is obvious but it appears that I, for the lack of being present and knowing and understanding*5 much stuff which has previously been barely explained to me that we were simply unable to get anywhere with the conversation.
Anger did not enter the process but clearly he and I are not seeing things in the same way right now.
I was in the throes of asking him to consider that change is probably what we could begin to talk upon that it is happening all the time and that people can sometimes work change to themselves when he hung up the second time. His suggestion just before hanging up was for me to write a letter. This journal may very well be that letter has since occurred to me as I am writing this.
If anyone reading this thinks boy Oh boy, is he ever pushing it then I would have to agree.
For me, 50 years about of me trying for some unconditional love from those who I would wish I should not have needed to ask for it from is long enough. They’re both dead. I need to move on and I am pushing as I can to make that happen by concluding what can be concluded instead of waiting for the impossible*5 to happen at the whim of the universe.
I’m through waiting for the phone to ring, a letter to arrive, a hug, a kiss whatever. There’s life over the crest with or without my family and I’m determined to have it with or without them if that’s ultimately the case.
Dec 3, 2008
I phoned back the Salvation Army bloke and made him aware of the basics of my communication with my Father’s widow. I thanked him for being part of the process to enable me to make that communication.
I felt he was saddened to hear the communication between she and I had begun with a statement from her outlining that I was (to her) not seen to be family but as it’s said sometimes shit happens and there’s not much we can do about it! I said I would like to stop by and thank he and his partner for their kindnesses personally not right now but at some time in the near future. He said he’d be happy for that to happen 🙂
Dec 10, 2008
Letter arrived from the Solicitors offices I rang on December 1.
They write they have been instructed by the executrix of the estate to provide me with a copy of my Father’s will on the basis of the information I supplied them over the phone that I am the deceased’s son.
I have to stop into their office to collect it. I have to produce photo ID ie a Current Drivers Licence or passport.
I’ll do that tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what it has to say to me.
I continue asking for clarity whenever I find myself falling into the self pity/why am I suffering this still, mode. It works, not straight away but these days I don’t set out expecting it to appear on the spot rather I just ask for it and leave off the worry and waiting for it to arrive. Life continues 🙂
Dec 11, 2008
No surprises, simply there’s no mention of me in the will, I do not exist in that regard.
I felt it best to not become upset but to do something positive straight away so I bought a pack of chocolate coated peanuts and we had a swim in the surf at Kirra Breach and am happy to state we enjoyed both.
I will have to get some legal advice now I guess to see what, if anything I could consider to do in response to this latest turn of events. Not in a hurry to do anything right away.
The will is recent, set down as at 23 Oct 2008, one week before my Father died.
Dec 12, 2008
I had a talk to a lovely woman last night. she left me with this…
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is an act, not a feeling.
Though it may generate feelings, forgiveness is an exercise of the will. When we forgive, we refuse to be further damaged by the wrongdoing of others.
A refusal to forgive is called resentment. And the victim of resentment is always the one who carries it.
The people we refuse to forgive may neither know nor care about our resentment.
To hang on to a resentment is to harbour a thief in the heart. By the minute and the hour, resentment steals the joy we could treasure now and remember forever.
We victimise ourselves when we withhold forgiveness.
I’m working on it* 🙂
*recalling to mind now something I learned at the Facing Death Workshop
In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional.
🙂
edit: I decided not to waste any more time leaving undone things I could move along with doing.edit ends
I went and chanced an impromptu meeting with the Salvation Army officers concerned with my father’s funeral.Guess what! They were both there, present as well as another woman who I had been worrying over, her being owed a face to face thank you from me for hearing me out recently over the phone.
I thanked them all for their actions towards my Father, his Wife, my Siblings and towards me as well. They gave me a book.*6
It was during this conversation that I looked again at the will and with great happiness I found I was written in there! The ink is white, the paper is white but I’m in there, there is no doubt 😀
edit: I realised this morning (Dec 14, 2008) that the immediately above paragraph might need some clarifying for some folks so here goes…
My Father died resenting me and to that end he left me out of his will. I’ve long been looking for a tangible sign that my parents together or separately loved me and I hoped his will would hold a sign that this was the truth.
I now believe that for his resentment to exist it had to begin its life as his love.
When the understanding of forgiveness not given turning towards resentment came, I had my answer in that instant.
Tears came shortly thereafter, relief, awareness, sadness, release.
I realise that anything is possible now 🙂
Dec 13, 2008
A great start to the morning 🙂
Rang my Aunt, had a wonderful conversation with her. She is now relieved of some anxieties I knew she would have been holding and much sooner now than she’d have expected to be.
A small step in the right direction 🙂
Letters of forgiveness to my siblings and Stepmother are next on the list of things to make happen 🙂
Dec 28, 2008
The letters are finally printed out. Amazing how little text they contain. I had started writing them and they’d very quickly assumed epic proportions, I sat with them and now the finished articles hold hardly more than a couple of sentences each. I’ll sign them and get each of them in the post and away tomorrow. I’m adding a postcard size photo of the pink waterlily above with each letter.
note: This forgiveness business is pretty good stuff 🙂
Dec 29, 2008
They’re in the mail 😀
Now we are off to the beach to have a swim in the sea.
Breathing freely now 🙂*7
Jan 30, 2009
Replies received, one negative, another not so but somewhere in between, the last one definitely tending towards the positive, I’m very happy with this result.
Since receiving the first two replies I’ve attended a 10 day Buddhist retreat, my first ever retreat. The whole retreat was on Meditation, high end teachings for that type of Tibetan Buddhism, fantastic experience.
These days I can meditate with my eyes open, half open that is. No need for a focal point either is what we were taught, it’s harder without a focus but better if we can otherwise one step back down the process is to use a focal point, an object, your thoughts even or an emotion, a feeling, a sound/s any sensation, pain you’re feeling for example, make the distraction the focus of the meditation is what we were taught, neat stuff!
Grateful While there an opportunity arose so I added both my parents names to a prayer list to be taken across the planet to France then to various Buddhist Monasteries in India to be prayed over by monks, ultimately I understand to reside I somewhere inside a statue of the Buddha.
Finally I feel I’ve honored them. Awareness that they did _their_ best in their own particular ways has allowed me to set them free and me at the same time. I no longer need to visit that past to ponder and anguish over what happened back there. Now beginning reading*9
Feb 9, 2009
There’s been terrible bushfires here in Australia, many many people have died, many have lost their homes, it’s extremely saddening and upsetting to realise 🙁
What’s happened for me thinking after these things is it’s helped me to coalesce my thoughts about my family business…
I’ve been struggling. It’s too much for me the unfinished family business. I’ve been sitting with the response letters trying to figure how to proceed and I’ve realised that there really is no one that’s even remotely there for me. So why should I continue with my angsting over what to write back to the one letter (my brothers) that did show some direction tending towards the positive?
I decided there’s a mountain in the way and I cannot move it so with tears in my eyes…
I just rang and left a somewhat bitter (yep still suffering) message on the answer machine of my stepmother thanking her for her letter and letting her know I’m finished with it all.
Said far as I can work out the "family" has never been there for me in the way I’ve needed them to be and those that remain clearly never will be.
I’ve instructed her that she’s now at liberty to pass along to them all that I’m done with them, and this family business. I remember I said I’d never felt more alone than I did when I found myself thinking about them especially their attitudes towards me.
So what now?
I’m off with whatever life has in store for me without them, they will not be called upon by me in any way after this point in time.
I’m filing the letters and all other paperwork next then I’ll be off to make a start with living the rest of my life without them as a part of it.
edit
Sent a more elaborate email to my Aunt. She has all she might need to send to the others should she want to or should they ever ask.
Different realities!
That is the end to it and to them all.
In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional…
Feb 11, 2009
Interesting reading, (local press) not that I usually put much store in what the stars say.
Interesting also that I actually know the person who writes them, us, having met unexpectedly, only recently.
Here they are for Tuesday, 10 February 2009…
ARIES: Present energies bring a fabulous chance to heal an old pattern that’s been operating for most of your life. To realize how different things are now that you’re the one in charge of your feelings – to forgive the past, drop the burden and move forward free at last.
Special Edit: Wed 11 Feb, 2009
This evening I had a chance to meet and talk with the woman who writes the stars for the paper and to tell her how very apt were this week’s stars happened to be for me especially in relation to my current situation 🙂
Mar 27, 2009
A friend just emailed me that they’d read through this again, they were happy to see how things had developed, they passed along to me the following…
LETTING GO TAKES LOVE
To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off,
it’s the realisation I can’t control another.
To let go is not to enable,
but allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it’s to make the most of myself.
To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.
To let go is not to be protective,
it’s to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To let go is not to criticise or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more
Remember: The time to love is short —— author unknown
April 2, 2009
More recently helping with the healing*10 is taking time to listen to some of what’s on offer from Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. His Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (audiobook) initially released as a book only and the same for his Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
Being given access to the Body Scan Meditation from his
Series 1 Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practice Program (4 CD set) has been very rewarding also. I’m seeking out presently the full complement of the Series 1 disks now to have them to hand and easily within reach 🙂
June 3, 2009
Beating a dead horse!
It’s a tough one this getting along, moving on, becoming whatever one thinks to call it. I am no different to anyone else in that regard so I don’t blame myself for any steps taken backward especially in light of the most recent turn of events 🙂
Yes, I regressed, I got angry at the lack of contact , at all that has transpired not just the recent past but with my entire history of interactions, or lack of, with my family.
I contacted the Salvation Army officer again and asked him to ask my ?stepmother? why she was punishing me, what had I done to or against her that allowed her to conduct herself with regard to me in the way she has done. I also have looked into making a legal claim on my father’s estate.
I relayed to him to share with her that I was researching into the possibility and to pass that along to her together with a proviso that I’d rather I had no need to go in such directions but that so long as I remain isolated and left hanging by ?family? then….
In all this there has been in my mind that there was one distant family member who had never had any issue with me.
They had experienced and interacted my immediate family directly and had always approached and dealt with those family members in a fair, open and non-judgmental manner.
We had not communicated since the late 90’s. I had thought they’d been misdirected about things and so it was I felt I had to contact them and ask one question which had been haunting me, about events we experienced together when last we were in each others company.
I rang them…
They shrieked with delight when they realised who was calling.
The amazing thing is..
I
now
have
family
who
are
there
for
me
🙂
If I never hear back from the Salvation Army fellow… edit no word still, June 13, 2009 edit ends
If I never hear back from my stepmother… edit Ultimately I had to force a meet between us on June 7, 2009 edit ends
If I never see a single cent of inheritance it should no longer worry me as it has… edit. It IS still worrying me as at June 13, 2009 edit ends
What’s defining for me is to actually know that you’re part of a family even if by only one family member, as has been my quest for most of my life, is the best thing to me.
Truth is I look forward to my future now and for the first time in many many years.
June 7, 2009
Moving along…
I forced a meeting with my stepmother into being today. I simply turned up at her church.
The meeting went well enough considering. We saw each other’s pain but such is life that even when one sees another’s pain it does not mean they will do what they might to offer up all available remedies.
Found out today, finally, that there will be no inheritance coming to me. What portion of my fathers estate my stepmother holds under her control presently she says she will be willing after her passing to my siblings, after his wishes.
Doesn’t make it any easier to understand why she intends to hold with that process as she acknowledged to my face that I was not cared for by my parents as I should have been. That I had been treated shamefully by them in life and in death too and I should not be enduring any such punishment/s?
I feel good probably because I have finally made myself seen and heard to one person at least from "within" the family. A person who has to a degree played along with the processes directed to dis-empowering me who today has acknowledged me as a person and not a receptacle for prejudice.
Will things change further after this? I think they will but I won’t be torn emotionally as I have been from here on in. I know I will sleep well tonight.
June 14th, 2009
I don’t wish to come across ungrateful but I’m, right at this moment, staying with believing I’m a long way from being finished with this process.
How do I sound then when I say I feel I should be extended my share of inheritance and that those who have been given it should be asking themselves how it is that they are able to take a financial gain under the circumstances and have no trouble sleeping at night after the various shared histories we all have between us.
Am I simply being a child that’s still hurting without being given any just cause or reason for it or are they being children themselves acting on some self perceived impunity to punish simply because they believe they have some given right to do so?
If it’s me acting out then I’m calling poor show by them by their actions being they are, unlike me, all parents of children themselves.
If they don’t know my "whole" story then they should be showing interest now to know before leveling their punishment. If they are acting on my Fathers wishes I would put to them that he is now dead but I still draw breath.
I wrote my truth to my parents in 1997, I took the time to do so as the only remaining way to get my truth made known to them despite their efforts to silence me.
They never took it upon themselves to reach back to me as I now believe a parent who loved their child would.
To be let go by them as they choose to, to be treated so by other family now after they have both passed on?
June 14th, 2009
note: The following response is copied from comments
"Dear Glenn,
My take on "inheritance" is so different from what that word generally brings to mind that I think I am not going to be helpful to you in resolving this Glenn.
For me, what I have is my own to gift to whomever I wish.
I personally wish to do that in ways that make sense to me and to trust that it makes sense to all of those who might reasonably have expected a share.
Even as I write that though, I resent the words "expected".
I cannot explain it beyond to say that that is how my parents raised me.
we children did not all ever get similar gifts for Christmases when we were young children and /or birthdays and sometimes nothing at all.
O paternal grandparents died and there were huge discrepancies in how they chose to disperse their estate among their children. My parents were at great pains, though NOT included, to stress to us (their children) that it was their parents right to choose, that their parents had earned every cent and it was theirs to do with as they wished.
I know this will be blunt, but it is how I see it, and am glad to have had that as part of my upbringing and am in the process of making sure that my own childrne understand these words even if they find it hard.
I can only wish you well as you struggle with it, but I believe anything gained as a result of obtaining "rights" is likely to be a pyrrhic victory.
Fond Regards …
I
Judith"
June 15th, 2009
Thanks Judith, I had nothing but tears after reading what you wrote I think most probably towards this bit…
"and am in the process of making sure that my own childrne understand these words even if they find it hard."
It epitomizes most eloquently what my life’s quest has been after up till today. That is me simply seeking someone from my family, preferably to have been one or both of my parents, to come forward and explain to me so many of what I think of as "ordinary things, ordinary situations" to me. Me, who has longed to have had them explained in the first instance better even with care and support until I gained for myself a firm understanding of what was and why.
I’d like to thank you for making it plain(er) to me why my trying to get some reconciliation even if only monetary has always been a lost cause.
It was put to me very recently the following…
"If it were a "game", (wrestling/betting), you have been made to loose, your hand was dealt a long time ago and this way anyone else but you wins. You cannot compete with that mentality, you will always loose…"
I think I understand now how poor a hand I was dealt.
edit June 15th, 2009 Evening, after sitting and thinking over the day.
I have fought hard and long just to survive, to let things go now as they are is a tough thing to consider doing.
The injustices I have encountered are clearly not going to be ones that I can set to right no matter what I do.
Letting them go now is finally coming to be the obvious answer.
I was hoping this might have become a standout example where wrongs magically came to be righted, people stepped forward to seek forgiveness and admit their own human frailties but maybe that’s just in Hollywood movies and not what happens for most folks in their day to day lives.
Shit happens! Time to take that revelation to heart.
A good time is now for me to listen, again, to Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence*11 (audiobook edition). It probably will have to be the way of things for me from now on that I simply go over listening and reading again such resources as I have till I become ok with things.
I need to find the space I was engaging with a few months ago to be in it again. edit ends
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Refs.
*1 Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life – Susan Forward ISBN: 9780553381405
*2 Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child – John Bradshaw ISBN: 9780553057935
*3 Facing Death Workshop click here to learn more.
*4 Forgiveness
*5 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, This Wikipedia page about CBT will clarify to some degree how the use of CBT has been able to assist me with resolving some aspects of my makeup especially my previous somewhat lacking sense of awareness.
*6 Soul Cravings : An Exploration of the Human Spirit – Erwin Raphael McManus ISBN: 9780785214946 (EXTRA SPECIAL NOTE) I tried to get into reading this book but the God Absolute Aspect loomed too much too early and that alone turned me away from completing reading it, it sits in the "maybe I will read it oneday" pile for now. edit: April 1, 2009 I returned the book to the Salvation Army. I figured it would do more good there than sitting around here. I can always get hold of another copy should I feel the need to return to reading it.
*7 Some things that have helped me to get here.
Seeking out a counselor these last few years who I was able to engage with in a free and open manner.
Becoming open to the prospects of change.
Taking up Meditation.
Being Mindful. I’d suggest searching for information about mindfulness as a beginning.
Breathing.
🙂
*8 The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation (Double Audio CD) by Joan Z. Borysenko, Ph.D.
Publisher – Hay House
Publication Date – January 2006
ISBN 1-4019-0664-8
I borrowed this from a local library and it’s helped get me started learning to meditate. It is available to buy here. There are plenty of such assists out there, this was the one that just happened to fall into my lap when I decided to start looking 🙂
*9 The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Sogyal Rinpoche ISBN: 9780062508348
*10 Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. His Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness (audiobook) initially released as a book only and the same for his Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.
Being given access to the Body Scan Meditation from his
Series 1 Guided Mindfulness Meditation Practice Program (4 CD set) has been very rewarding also. I’m seeking out presently the full complement of the Series 1 disks now to have them to hand and easily within reach.
*11 Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
An excellent online resource for locating new and secondhand books such as those I’ve mentioned and indeed any other book or books you might be interested in obtaining.
Last but not least don’t forget there’s Libraries, make good use of them 🙂
In life, pain is inevitable, the suffering is optional has been blogged
here, here here here here and here.
Traveling TV exec’s job filled with adventure
Vice president and head of operations for GMA International, Joseph Jerome Francia has logged, as he puts it, “so many hours of flying time.”
Read more on Philippine Daily Inquirer
