Your Presence is Your Absence

You are not here

But I do not forget you
You pervade my every day

You are in the morning sun

But I do not make you toast

I cannot kiss your waking face

You are in the fold of my arms

But I do not feel your warmth

I cannot hold you close

You are in the playground 

But I do not push your swing

I cannot hear you laugh

You are in the little girl's smile

But I do not feel your joy

I cannot share your glee

You are in my old wedding dress

But I do not see you twirl

I cannot make it fit

You never shed any tears
And I do not wipe them away
I cannot make you better

You are in my mother's soul

As she ages and changes

But you cannot share her life

You are in my past, present and future

In my pain, and in my joy

You are everywhere, and yet nowhere.

Big words, small words...the most important words

I've said before, I love words. There's something wonderful, for me, about words that are different, delicate, unusual, not oft heard or spoken. It's like opening a hidden treasure, when I see a word that requires me to open the dictionary. Words can be like music, almost ephemeral, like they can float from your grasp if you don't catch them in time;  notes of a tune that disappear into the past before you've had a chance to really experience them. You know they are something that you want to pursue, to understand, to acquire or conquer, to know.

I love reading books in which words are used so carefully, creatively, poetically; where it is like I am floating on a wave of learning and gentle inspiration. Words that enter
my mind and my soul.  Words like insouciant, flipendulous, liminal, charientism...

Sometimes people who use big words, words that appear important, intelligent, out of the ordinary person's reach, words that can be intimidating or seductive, seem like people we should admire and respect. Sometimes when we hear a person use words that are unfamiliar, coated with the wealth of a secret knowledge that is held by those out of our league, we feel that this person deserves our admiration, our attention, our reverence to their opinion. But ultimately, words are just letters, lines on a page or spoken sounds in the air. And it's not the words that are important, it's what the person means to communicate which holds the most value.

I recently read the book, a first novel by the author Wendy Jones, "The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals". It is a story about a young man who learns that it's not big, or academic sounding words that are important, but the small words which are most often the most difficult, yet important, ones to say. After being seduced by the love and intrigue of unusual words, and the belief that how one speaks reflects the character and value of the person, Wilfred comes to realise something else:

     "Words went on forever. And it was strange how the most important moments in life required one to speak, to say what one felt. What I need, he thought, is another kind of dictionary, one that tells me what to say when I don't know what to say. Wilfred wondered what words such a dictionary would have. Phrases such as 'I'm sorry', 'forgive me', even that most difficult of phrases, 'I was wrong'... the words he really needed were the ones his heart spoke... Big words, clever words - were rather grand, too grand really, and unnecessary...It was sufficient, more than enough, to speak plainly, to say what was in his heart. And that wasn't about long words with lots of syllables. It was about simple words. And courage."

I'm often surprised by own sense of inadequacy when it comes to finding the right thing to say. Goodness me, I've been writing and speaking in some way for a living for most of my adult life! Moreover, I know what it is to suffer. I know what it is to feel like the whole world is silent, with no words to offer me. I know what it's like to desperately wish the person near me would just say some simple words, even the words 'I don't know what to say'. But I, too, am sometimes crippled with a lack of courage or clarity, and the moment so often passes when a few words would have meant so much. Sometimes a stranger, sometimes a friend, or family member. I am ashamed of myself in those times. And I vow to make it up to the world, my fellow human beings, in some way next time the opportunity presents itself.

But what propels me most these days, to not hold back, to find those simple words, is my mother. Mum has been living with ovarian cancer for nearly two years. Her body is at war with itself now more than ever before. She is changing before my very eyes. I have never more desperately hoped that I will see her age, to be an old woman. She turns 70 this year. I want to see her at 90. I want to be able to say all those simple words for many more years. I want to learn not to hold back. I want her to hear me say things, not just to know, intuitively, what I am thinking. I love you Mum. I admire you. I am in awe of you.

Simple words. Spoken out loud. More poetic, meaningful, and important, than any long and unusual words could ever be.

From: http://www.speareducation.com

Acceptance, and why it may not be such a bad word

I love words. I love writing, reading, and using words. I think about their meaning, how they came to be, and what they mean for me. But perhaps that’s why I sometimes also struggle with words. Acceptance is a word that has haunted me for quite some time. I’ve hated it, avoided it, longed for it, and been utterly confused by it. Such a seemingly simple word, but one that can create such a variety of experience depending on the subject of that acceptance.

Etymologically speaking, acceptance essentially means “taking or receiving what is offered”. For example, the Oxford dictionary provides the following definitions:

1.    the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered

2.    the process or fact of being received as adequate, valid, or suitable, and

3.    agreement with or belief in an idea or explanation:

So why has the word ‘acceptance’ haunted me, and probably many others? Well, when it comes to grief, acceptance is a key term, but it is not so simple. Kubler-Ross’s famous theory includes acceptance as one of the stages of grief (Kübler-Ross, 1969), as does William Worden in his four grief tasks (Worden, 2008). For example, Worden describes the first grief task, acceptance, as ‘accepting the reality of the loss’. He or she is really gone. They are dead.

Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to be “OK” with the fact that the person is dead (Indeed! I did NOT consent to receive this death!). But they do need to accept it as true (Well, maybe I can agree with the idea or explanation that this death has happened). Sounds simple and logical. But from there, one is also assumed to be able to move on in their life, with the knowledge and acceptance that the deceased is no longer alive and that the relationship that did exist at best needs to be transformed or reintegrated into the bereaved person’s life. This is the difficult bit. Most of us don’t really know what this means. Moreover, a therapist, a friend or relative, a stranger, or a work colleague will no doubt conceive of reintegration very differently. For many, reintegration does not mean openly talking about the deceased, having photos displayed, organising birthday parties and so on. Instead, for many it means ‘letting go’ and integrating the reality of loss into one’s life.

From a psychological perspective, the term acceptance has been described as “a person's assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit...” (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance ). Some have also related it to the term acquiescence, which derives from the Latin word 'acquiēscere', meaning ‘to find rest in’.

When my daughter and then my son died as babies I was devastated. Grief was like a deluge. But as horribly painful as it was, true to my independent and occasionally stubborn self, I did not want to ‘heal’. I did not want to ‘move on’. I did not want to ‘accept’. I wanted to immerse myself in my sorrow and never let go. I wanted to protest all this grief work! My poor grief counsellor, a wonderfully wise and amazing woman, must not have known what to do with me at times!

And yet, I did want to live my life. I also wanted to know what this journey of grief was going to be like, in 5 years, 10 years, and 40 years. But there was no manual, and most support guides for grief centred on the first year, maybe two, as if somehow after that it just runs its course and life continues on.

I continued to resist the idea of acceptance. I would close my ears and eyes, my mind and heart, whenever I came across this word in relation to grief. However, I also continued to see my grief counsellor over several years. I wondered whether I would ever not feel such deep pain and sadness. I tended to accept that I would. Because I could see no other way. No other way to satisfy my need to mother my children. This is one of the most difficult things with the death of a baby, when their little lives were so short. Love and pain are so tightly connected that it is difficult to only experience love. And to let go of pain seems as if you don’t feel love.

My children died 10 and 9 years ago, respectively. I’ve often wondered in more recent years how I coped, particularly early on. It wasn’t until I attended an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) workshop (as a practitioner, not in relation to grief or myself) that I realised acceptance has played more of a role than I ever imagined. According to the ACT guru Steven Hayes, acceptance in this therapeutic context is:

…an alternative to experiential avoidance. Acceptance involves the active and aware embrace of those private events occasioned by one’s history without unnecessary attempts to change their frequency or form…For example, anxiety patients are taught to feel anxiety, as a feeling, fully and without defense…Acceptance in ACT is not an end in itself. Rather acceptance is fostered as a method of increasing values-based action.” (http://contextualscience.org/the_six_core_processes_of_act )

And this is just how I have grieved, although I never realised it at the time. I did not stop my pain. I did not resist it. I allowed it to be whatever it was within me. I did not avoid experiencing my babies, even though that meant also experiencing all the heartache. And it literally was, and still is, heart-ache.

With the support of my grief counsellor (Yes, that’s how wonderful she is), I remember specifically exploring how I might parent my dead children. How could I still be their parent, even in their death? In line with the ACT notion of acceptance fostering values-based action, it was my acceptance of the pain and experience of grief that enabled me to identify what was truly of value to me. Being a mother, and not giving up.

A woman who lives with Rheumatoid Arthritis writes in her blog (http://idanceintherain.com):

Do not see acceptance as a weakness.
Accepting a situation does not mean you are giving up.

When I read this, it was like it had been written just for me, and Lillienne and Finn. I did not want to give up on parenting them, even though I had accepted that they were dead.

I’ve learned a lot about parenting a dead child over the past 10 years. I’ve written briefly about this before (see my post “Parenting the dead” from October 2012). But I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately as we get closer to Lillienne’s 10^th birthday this year. And I’ve reflected on how I’m changing as a parent to her in subtle ways, just as I would if she really was a little girl of ten. I give her a little more independence now. I don’t worry about her so obsessively like I did when she would have been much younger, and in the earlier years of my grief. I still think of her every day, and I miss her like crazy at times. But I can even smile sometimes when I think of her, and wonder if maybe she is off having fun with another little soul. Sometimes I feel her beside me, but when I don’t for a while, that’s OK too. She always returns, because we are connected, she is a part of me, totally (re)integrated, and always will be.

Artwork by Sharon Hendy-Moman (Brisbane) - commissioned in 2013 by me,
to represent Lillienne and Finn as children.
http://www.sharonhendymoman.com/

Living with Wholeness

On the turn of this new year, I came across the quote "Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one." It made be think about what a good year of life might be.

I recently listened to a radio interview with Hugh Mackay, a sociologist and author, talking about his new book "The Good Life". He writes about how to live a good life, in which he means living a life of wholeness, including the full range of human emotion not just happiness and fulfillment but "sadness, disappointment, frustration, and failure; all of those things which make us who we are." He argues that the current social pursuit of happiness is actually a dangerous idea, as "happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much." Indeed, in Buddhism, suffering is considered necessary for learning.

I didn't get much sleep last night, as we saw the new year in with friends and family. But I did manage to sleep past my usual waking time, which is early enough in the summer weather for a reasonably comfortable running experience. I looked out the window. The sun was already bright and shining. Not much shade lined the streets. Hmm... did I really need to go this morning? I didn't want to have to run with my dog Rosie. Going back to bed and pretending I could sleep some more seemed like a much more comfortable option. I did not fancy the suffering a run would create today. I would be hot, and after a late night with champagne, my body would probably ache.

But then I remembered how good it can feel, even after a tough run, knowing you had succeeded despite it seeming like a hurdle too big to overcome. And I thought of Rosie, how happy she would be, and how much she needed it. So up I got, pulled on my running shoes and off we went.

Rosie and I have been running most mornings now for nearly 3 years, apart from a few blocks of time when I have been sick and getting back into the routine has taken more than it should. Running has been a wonderful time for mindfulness, and I've done a lot of thinking, and a lot of learning as a result.

Today as I ran, I thought about the idea of living a life of "wholeness" as Hugh Mackay would suggest. My struggle to get going this morning, my initial desire to avoid the suffering I knew would ensue, became a metaphor for his theory. Yes, we do try to avoid the suffering that life sometimes brings us; sadness, anger, frustration, and anxiety are emotions that often fill us with fear and dread. They are far from pleasant, and if we listen to the world around us, we could easily assume they are not good for us at all. Happiness and feeling grateful for the good things in life are what we should be striving for...yes?

If I had avoided the suffering that I did inevitably experience this morning on my run, I would have possibly had a nice time lazing in bed, but would never have experienced the joy in turning that last corner knowing Rosie and I would be home soon, the pride in knowing I had achieved something I didn't want to do, the thrill of jumping into the water of the pool to cool down my hot body and soothe my aching muscles, and the feelings of love and connection between me and my beautiful dog. I reckon she knows that some mornings I find it really hard, so she gleefully tries to pull me up the first hill by grabbing the lead in her mouth and grinning at me to follow her. We don't need to experience suffering on our own.

Allowing others in to our suffering isn't always easy. For many, this just doesn't come naturally. And why should it, when we are constantly getting messages that imply we shouldn't feel bad; "Get over it", "let it go", "chin up" are common responses to another person's feelings of sadness, anger or worry. But if we are open to others, then someone who is not afraid of suffering isn't too far away. And if we are open to our own suffering then what we can experience through such discomfort is sometimes incredible. It is only through the experience of contrast that we can can truly know something. Consider the saying, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone", or "It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."  If you don't allow yourself to experience something, you don't get to learn how important it may be for you, even if that learning occurs through suffering.

If we allow ourselves to experience the negative things in life, to embrace them as part of our human existence, as a necessary part of living an enriched life, then we are living a life of wholeness. We are living as a whole being. And sometimes, just sometimes, through the suffering comes not just an experience of happiness or gratitude, but a richness of experience that we could not have imagined.

So, may we not be afraid of the unknown paths, including paths of suffering, and may 2014 bring wholeness to our lives.

from: http://wholeartiststudio.com/seeking-perfection-or-seeking-wholeness/

Loving You

Loving you, dear Finn,

Holding you

in the fantasy of my arms,

Missing you

in the ache of my heart,

Wondering

about you.

Loving you, dear Finn,

Visiting you

in the cold, wet earth,

Mourning you

in dawn of each day,

Dreaming

about you.

Loving you, dear Finn,

Seeing you

in the eyes of your brother,

Honouring you

with the words that I speak,

Forever being

with you.

In memory of Finnian Charles Smith
 ~ born and died, 17 July 2005 ~

 

 

On mothers and mothering

Today is Mother's Day. For weeks now, the shops have been full of merchandise and marketing, telling us to be thankful for our mothers, to celebrate them and the things they do for us. And of course, this is a joyful thing to do. But not for everyone.

Most of us grow up believing that mothering is an intuitive thing. You have a baby, and you are automatically granted 'mother' status. You will love this child, care for it, do the best for it, never stop loving it, and would fight for it unconditionally. Perhaps even give your life for it. But no, sadly, this is not the case.

Life is much nicer if we ignore the fact that some women are just not good at mothering. But it exists. And today, while many of us celebrate our mothers with love and joy, there will be children and adults who grieve. They grieve the lack of mother love in their lives, re-experience the trauma, past and present, that is a result of someone not mothering with intuitive care, skill, and consistency. Something that so many of us often take for granted. Our mothers have always been there. Loving us, protecting us, supporting us, sharing our lives with us. Mothering us.

It may seem foreign to try to imagine not mothering a child in this way. For me, it really does feel intuitive at times. At least the loving bit does. But I also feel lost in my mothering, and confused about what to do at times. In the end though, I find that love and it's consistency allows me to find my way. I think I learned this from my own wonderful mother.

So why do some women not feel the intuitive sense of mothering? Why do they make poor decisions, allow their children to suffer, disregard their needs, control or ignore them, or worst still, dis-own them? Perhaps these mothers didn't have good role models themselves, they didn't feel loved as children, or now other life circumstances prevent them from being able to carry out the kind of mothering they aspire to; illness, difficult or dysfunctional relationships, economics, and so on. It's not a straightforward answer I'm sure. Our world has a complexity like never before.

Some children I have worked with, who have not experienced intuitive mothering, who grieve the constancy of love and care from their mothers, often say "It would be easier if my mother was dead...". They imagine that this would allow them to package up their grief and trauma, and try to move forward in their lives. But it's not that easy.

There's a book written for children called "The Invisible String". It is a great tool to help young kids deal with separation anxiety as it explores the idea of constant connection between mothers and children, or between any two people who love one another. You can tug on this string and send your love all the way down the line to the other person. And when you feel their love in your heart, it means they have tugged on the string in return. This piece of string can go anywhere and everywhere, even to heaven, and it is stronger than anger. Nice in theory.

But I think in many ways this invisible string does exist. Unfortunately, for some children (and some mothers too) they keep tugging on that string, but struggle to feel the tug in return. For some, the string continues to be attached to their heart, even when it seems to be floating freely at the other end, unattached to the intended other. That's when instead of feeling the return tug and love in their heart, they feel pain and loss.

Today, I hope that for all those people who feel their mother-child invisible strings, not pulled taut with constant tugging, but loose and lost at the other end, they feel love and connection with others; fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbours, teachers, or someone who lets them know they are loved. So that today, rather than being full of sadness, it can have moments of hope, kindness, and guiding experiences for how to mother one day themselves.

from: http://overthefencewithem.com/the-invisible-string/

The Power and Healing of Empathy

It seems fitting that today, ANZAC Day in Australia (an annual memorial day to Australian soldiers who have fought and died), I have been thinking a lot about empathy.

Apparently I have always been a very empathic person, although I haven't always seen myself in this way, and certainly not necessarily as a positive attribute.

My mother tells me that back when I was in Grade 1 at school, my teacher told her I was a compassionate child. There was one boy in my class, a difficult student, likely with an intellectual impairment or developmental disorder, whom no one would play with or much tolerate. But as a six-year old child, I cared for him.

In my teenage and young adult years, I always described myself as 'over-sensitive', thinking that what I experienced was a problem, a handicap of some sort. I chose not to continue my original career path after my undergraduate degree and become a practicing psychologist, because after some work experience I thought I wouldn't be able to handle the suffering that I would witness in others. I wouldn't be able to distance myself from other people's pain. I became an academic instead.

For several years I avoided dealing with these experiences in my life, as much as I could. I deliberately constrained my contact with sadness or pain. I stopped watching the news. All doom and gloom. I chose not to see violent, scary or particularly sad movies. Though not always very successfully. I remember reading the book "The Bridges of Madison County" when I was about 24 years old. The sadness and longing of the characters stayed with me for weeks. I became a 'greenie', and an amateur vegetarian, not really because of ethics or philosophical viewpoints, but because when I ate meat I would physically feel the pain of the animals who have died, and when I saw a tree being felled, a deep sadness would weigh on my heart like as if I felt the grief of Mother Nature.

Then I suffered myself. I felt pain that was so intense I thought I would stop breathing. My baby daughter died. And then one year later, my baby son died too. On the first anniversary of my daughter's death, I remember waking and feeling such sadness, such desperation that I didn't want to open my eyes. I wanted to stop. Everything. I was tired of living, each day with a stabbing pain that wouldn't go away. I imagined not being alive. And then in that moment I had the thought "This is what it is like, for all those people in the world, who think about death, who want to end their life". I felt a strange sense of oneness, of connection, understanding, and peace. I was feeling what they were feeling. A whole bunch of strangers, people I'd never met, but with whom I felt somehow linked. For some reason, this gave me a sense of relief. It helped a little.

I've learned a lot in these past 8 years. I've learned to be comfortable with death, with sadness, with pain and suffering. I realised that I didn't have to avoid sadness and tragedy anymore. That in fact being over-sensitive or over-empathic was an important part of me, and that it could actually be a strength. I remember the moment that I finally decided to go back and finish what I'd started nearly 20 years ago, to work in counselling others. A student of mine contacted me for an extension on an assignment. Her grandmother had died. She told me how she had been there in the hospital on her own when her grandmother drew her final breath, and how terrible this was for her. When I read her message, I imagined what it would be like. To be lying there beside my grandmother, witnessing her life and death. I thought of how painful that would be, but also how amazingly beautiful and precious it would be to share this moment with someone that I loved. I shared this reflection with my student. She was very grateful, as it helped her see the experience in a different way; not so traumatic, something that she would treasure rather than a memory to be avoided. I don't really remember anything else about that semester of teaching. This moment between me and my student was the most important. So I resigned.

My over-sensitivity was in fact a strength. A strength that had always been with me, but something that my daughter and son helped me to experience differently, something to be thankful for rather than wishing it wasn't a part of who I was, as I had done in the past.

This week I gave a guest lecture in an educational psychology course at a local university. I talked about motivation, and how in teaching it is important to have an understanding of the broader factors that impact on students' motivation in the classroom. I don't know why I decided to do this, but I planned to do some role-plays. The idea came to mind in thinking about how to provide the students with an opportunity to really 'get' what it's like for some children who they will find in their future classrooms. Children who are experiencing the pain of a separating family, or who hunger not only for food but for love and a sense of safety, and for whom concentrating on maths or reading is so far from their immediate needs.

So I borrowed some school uniforms from my step-children, and wrote a couple of character dialogues, a 9 year old boy and a 17 year old girl, drawn from the life histories of several past clients. The boy's older brother had died and he was struggling to deal with his emotions at school; anger and fear. The girl had been kicked out of home by her mother and was missing her family very much. I chose some melancholy music to help set the scene, and off I went. At the chosen moment in the lecture, I donned the first school uniform, took my place in the front of the lecture theatre, and began to recite the boy's inner dialogue. I had barely begun before I could feel myself choking up. I was relieved to have my back to the students so they couldn't see I was upset. "What on earth are you doing!" I said to myself. "Get a hold of yourself". It didn't work. I also fought back the tears and battled the lump in my throat as I went through the girl's character half an hour later. Perhaps my sobs appeared part of my acting of the characters, perhaps the students knew I really was sobbing. It didn't matter. My over-sensitivity helped to produce what I really wanted. Empathy. For those few minutes in the lecture, the students were able to connect with the characters, and imagine what it might be like for that boy and girl.

The power of empathy is hard to quantify. But I reckon the world would be a much better place if we could somehow infect people with it. Connection with others is theorised to be a basic human need (such as in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). Connection occurs when we feel some kind of understanding or oneness with another being. If only we understood each other better there would be less violence, hatred, and fear in the world. Not only between countries, but between individuals, neighbours, work colleagues, strangers in passing.

The power of connection is expressed well by Rachel Reiland in her book "Get me out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder".

"For all these years, you’ve lived under the illusion that, somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That’s what has gotten you by".

Now back to the beginning. ANZAC Day today. As I think about my 21 year-old step son joining the army next year, I hope that through whatever difficult experiences he may endure, he is able not just to be tough but to be connected with others, feeling empathy for his fellow human beings; and that these are the things that not only keep him going, but are what he strives for in his service.

http://cultureofempathy.com/

http://cultureofempathy.com/