Category: Pensive

How will you be remembered?

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The first time I remember hearing that someone famous had died was Elvis Presley in 1977.  I was ten, and had already learned to love his music. I watched Elvis movies on TV on Sunday afternoons. I sang along with his songs. I cried when I saw on TV that he had passed away. 

I remember quite vividly the time I was watching TV and the newsreader told me that John Lennon had been shot and killed. Again, I loved his music and the magic of lyrics that touched my soul, even as a thirteen year old. I always was into poetry, lyrical or otherwise.

I remember when Princess Grace of Monaco died in a car crash in 1982. I was shocked, and felt deeply for her family, especially her daughter Stephanie who was in the car with her when it happened. I knew of her as the elegant and sophisticated First Lady of Monaco, but I had also loved her in ‘High Society’ and other movies. 

That same year, a friend of mine was killed while riding his bike to visit his new workplace. He was hit by a drunk driver. He was just a regular guy. He was funny and sweet. He had so much talent and his life as a young adult was just opening up for him. His horizons were bright. He was gone far too suddenly, too soon. 
The grieving among his friends and family was intense. There were no news bulletins, magazine stories or headlines. Social media didn’t even exist. But there was a large church packed full of people who loved him and wished with all our hearts that he hadn’t been taken.

There were things we all wished we had said. Moments that we had allowed to slip by without acknowledgement or appreciation. We would never get another chance. 

This was my first experience of death among my friends. It was followed by several others over the next few years. All of them were young men – healthy, talented, funny guys who were genuinely loved by their family and friends.  Even now, I think of each of them when reminders pop up in conversations, on Facebook, in places we used to know. 

I remember being in the car, on the way to church, when I heard on the radio that Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed in a car crash in Paris. I was incredibly sad – more so for her sons and her family than anyone else. I watched her funeral on TV. I watched Charles and his boys as they walked slowly in the procession to Westminster Abbey.  The image of the wreath of flowers from William and Harry on her coffin, with a note that simply said, “Mummy”, broke my heart. That was when I really wept. 

It is completely understandable that people get upset when a beloved movie star, singer or other celebrity dies. 
Someone they admire, respect or aspire to be like has passed away. Their unique blend of personality, talent and beauty, be that physical, intellectual or spiritual) has been lost to those who remain behind. 

Last night the news was that Paul Walker, star of various movies, had died as the passenger in a car that hit a pole and burst into flames. The driver, his friend, was also killed. 

There has been a huge outpouring of grief on social media for Paul Walker, but what of his friend?
There were two men who died in that crash. 
Most likely, there were numerous other young men who were injured or killed in car crashes this past weekend alone. They were important, too. They were someone’s sons, brothers, cousins, friends, boyfriends, employees, students, teammates. Surely their lives are just as valuable as the celebrity?

Many families grieve every week for these reasons.

It can happen to anyone.  It can happen to anyone’s family and friends.
Young men in cars are more likely than anyone else to be injured or killed on a weekend.  

Life is so fragile, even though most of us tend to live as though we are invincible. 

In your grieving for those who have achieved fame for their talent or beauty, please think about and acknowledge the others who remain faceless and nameless to most of us.  They are no less important.  Their families also need prayer, support, condolence and encouragement.

It’s really important that we learn to use our grief as a reminder to make sure that our family and friends know we love them and appreciate them. Create positive, lasting memories so that there will always be a legacy of love when someone is gone. The memories and love are invaluable.

Our legacy of memories and love to our family and loved ones is far, far more important than fame. 

The friendships that never were.

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I don’t understand why people push good friends away. 

Nobody needs bad friends – that’s a no-brainer.  I’ve had my share of backstabbers, gossips, control freaks and users that I’ve eventually woken up to and had to move on.  It hurts to know that another person doesn’t value you the way you value them, but it hurts more to stay in a friendship like that and let them keep doing it. That just reinforces and affirms their bad behaviour.  It’s asking for more. 
That’s never a good thing.

In the past six weeks, I’ve experienced something different than that. Two people, both of whom have been my friends for quite some time, have chosen to walk away from our friendship.  

Both have stunned me for a number of reasons. I’ve been a good, loyal and encouraging friend when their chips were down. I’ve sat up late listening and talking when they had problems. I’ve invested time, love and energy into our friendships. And both freely admit that it’s nothing I’ve done… they have simply chosen to move on, not spend time with me, and not maintain our friendship.

Since then, I have seen them try to manipulate people and situations for their own benefit, to control others and have them at their bidding, and deceive other mutual friends in one way or another. “Divide and conquer” seems to be the order of the day. They have certainly left a deliberate trail of emotional and social destruction in their wake.

What kind of person does that?

I recognise that they both fall into the “user” category.  I wish I had recognised them for what they are sooner. I wish I could protect the people that they are now attacking instead of me. 

The strange thing is that I am still grieving for those friendships. I miss them.  It hurts to know that neither of those people valued me as a friend the way that I valued them.  It hurts to know that they do not care that I am no longer in their lives.

In one way, I hope karma, or poetic justice, or divine retribution, or whatever you want to call it, bites them hard. It would be good to know they learned their lesson from someone else doing the same thing to them, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone could be better than they are at using and abusing friendships.

In another way, thinking like that makes me sad. I can’t maintain it.  I’d prefer to walk away with my integrity and character intact, understanding that some people only come into our lives for a season and then we both move on.  I’d like to wish them well. I hope they both eventually find happiness, security, love… whatever it is they are looking for.  

My choice is to walk away from people like that and invest my time, energy and love in my real friends.  I am so blessed to have a select few in my life that I can trust to share my life and my love.  Those people will always have the best of all I have to give them. 

Anyone else will just have to be willing to meet me halfway and be willing to accept my caution until I am sure of who and what they are. I’ve learned that much.

 

The Sea.

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Grey clouds loom and the cool breeze bites my face. The ocean whips into white points, hungrily reaching for something to devour.

I dare not let myself go near it today.

Instead, I sit by the old anchor nestled in the first tufts of grass at the top of the beach.

It’s cold and uncaring, impersonal and no company at all, but it does give me some sense of security. I envy its stability. It knows its place. It only needed to be itself to do what it was meant to do.

Some days the sea is gentle, the small waves lapping at my feet as I hug my knees and look into the distance, wishing for something different, longing for things to change.

Cold.

Mischievous.

Tempting.

It seems so much less sinister than it really is.

Some days, I sit on the shore and watch it heave and crash, knowing its force but thankful that it’s not turning me upside down, dumping me mercilessly and leaving me with little but pockets full of sand to show for it.

I’ve been there.  Struggling to breathe – no! to hold my breath, survive, stay afloat. A few seconds to gulp greedily at the air and then I am gone again, losing all sense of direction, being engulfed; the plaything of the waves.  I’ve limped from the sea and collapsed on the shore, wondering how I didn’t see the breaker that overwhelmed me.

It’s odd that the cold doesn’t numb the senses. It sharpens them, heightens the pain, deepens the wounds.

Some of those wounds still haven’t healed.

I feel him before I see him. He’s watching me, knowing where I have come from, and understanding the storm that is threatening.

I remember when he rescued me from the sea. It nearly won. I was almost gone.

Then I was claimed by his strong arms, beautiful hands, lifting me, carrying me, wrapping me in his protective embrace. His warmth radiated into the saddest, loneliest places within me. The softly spoken words of reassurance – he’s got me, nothing to fear, I’m safe now.

He is beside me now, his arm around my back, his strength protecting me from the elements.

He’s got me. Nothing to fear. I’m safe now.

The tide recedes except for the droplet that weaves a solitary path down my cheek as it chases after the sea from whence it came.

Letting go.

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Today a dear friend of mine passed away.
I wrote about her on Friday. She was young and vibrant and had the most beautiful heart for other people that I’ve ever experienced.
She leaves behind her two young daughters, a husband, a mother and a father (who also has Alzheimers), an extended family and a wide network of friends. All who met Rebecca were touched by her spirit and her joy.

We knew she was dying. We knew that her battle with the cancers that attacked her colon, liver and abdomen was drawing to a close.  As soon as the news that Bec had passed away was delivered, the Facebook pages of her mother and sister were flooded with messages of love, support, sympathy, and grief.

It’s so hard for us to let go of someone we love. Nobody wants a member of their family or a friend to die.  It’s so hard to grieve and to let go.  It hurts. We cry. We hold each other, we promise ourselves that we will stop taking our loved ones for granted.  We take comfort in the belief that our loved one is in a better place, where there is no more sorrow or pain.

How blessed we are that the death of a friend or relative can still come as a shock.  How blessed we are that we often know it’s coming, and have a chance to say goodbye. How blessed we are if we live in a nation where the death of a child or a teen due to unforeseen circumstances is still unusual.

People from war-torn nations live with this on a daily basis.  They don’t know when their time will come. It may come in the form of a bombing, a military raid, arrest and subsequent imprisonment or disappearance, or genocide.

It’s no wonder some of them make the decision to flee the danger. Sometimes, an entire family or village will pool their very limited resources to spirit one young member of their family away in the hopes of them finding safety and building a life in a different place – a place where there is peace, and hope, and a future.

These are the people who get on the boats that belong to the people smugglers who bring them to Australia. They take the risks that they do because whatever danger lies ahead, it’s nowhere near as bad as the danger they leave behind.
All they want is a chance at a new life… to live somewhere where life is valued, where people are protected, and where the army and police are not the enemy.

I cannot imagine how a mother feels when her child flees a war zone and starts on a journey into the unknown.  She, too, will most likely comfort herself with thoughts of them going to a place where there is no sorrow, no war, no oppression, and where one really can enjoy peace.  Friends, too, would be sorry to see them go but hopeful that their new life will be much better than the one they leave behind.

Who do our political leaders think they are to say, “No, you can’t come in! We want to keep our country to ourselves!”? What on earth must the rest of the world think of the Australian Government’s latest decision – to rule out the possibility of any asylum seeker who tries to get to Australia ever being allowed to live here?

I could probably have a pretty good guess at what the asylum seekers think.
Heartless.
Cold.
Ignorant.
Selfish.

That’s what I think too.

Please don’t think that I’m saying that my friend Rebecca’s life means less than one of these asylum seekers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
However, each of those asylum seekers is someone’s brother or father, mother or daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, uncle… and their lives are just as valuable as those of the people who already live in this very wealthy, productive and vast land.  Knowing Rebecca as I do, I can confidently say that she would absolutely agree.

There has to be a better way – a more humane and compassionate way – to solve the problem of people smugglers endangering their lives.

I don’t know what that way forward it. But I know this – it must not involve denying the opportunities our nation offers for anyone who wants to live here and become an Australian.

“Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

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I’ve heard this said so many times, and I do believe it.

The line comes from Tennyson’s poem, ‘In Memoriam’.  It’s a long poem  in which the poet struggles with grief and loss, and all the other emotions and questions of faith and life that accompany them. His thoughts and feelings are very much like mine at this point in time.

“I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.”

When a friendship ends or when a loved one dies, it’s really hard to be the one that is left behind. It hurts… a lot.

Both kinds of grief have happened to me in the past couple of weeks. It’s also two years today since I sat with my mother, held her hand, and watched and waited as she died.  I’m sure the anniversary is adding to my pensive mood today as I consider the grief I have experience more recently.

A friend who means a very great deal to me turned on me and said he never wanted to talk with me again. I still don’t know what brought that on. I probably never will. He’s made his decision and I have to live with that, no matter how much it hurts, and no matter how much I really don’t like it.

We had been such close friends. We talked about everything. We shared hopes and dreams, happiness, pain, sorrow, loss, disappointment, and elation.  He told me often that I was one of the best friends he had ever had. He told me that he valued me as a friend, as a confidante, as a sounding board.
Yet he allowed his anger over something that someone else had done to poison our friendship. He told me that he knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, and that he knew I couldn’t do anything to change it… but he couldn’t let it go. He cradled his hurt, fed it with resentment, and it grew into obsessive anger.  He fertilised it with bitterness and self-pity, and it grew to be so big that it became a barrier between himself and everyone else.  Then he blamed me and pushed me away.
I observed to a mutual friend at that time that it’s worse than when a friend dies because you know at least they wanted to be with you and they cherished your friendship. Being apart is not what either of you wanted. When it’s someone’s choice, and you are the one who is rejected, that’s really hard to accept.

Two weeks later, I’m faced with the imminent death of a dear friend who I care very much for.
She’s young, vibrant, spirited, loving, and one of those beautiful souls that touches the heart of everyone she meets in a very special way.
She has two young daughters and a husband who loves her very much.
Her family all adore her. She is the eldest daughter, the big sister, a loving aunt, a treasured cousin, a precious niece.

Never mind my grief. It’s nothing compared to theirs.
What are they going to do without her? How will they cope? How will they move on and keep on building their lives?  I know their lives will be filled with the sentiment of “I wish she were here to see/experience/enjoy this”.

I am really struggling to deal with my grief. I don’t want her to die. I don’t want her daughters to have to grow up without their mother. I don’t want her struggle, our friendship, and the prayers of everyone who has supported and loved and cared for her to end this way.

I know cancer doesn’t actually choose its victims. I certainly don’t believe that God inflicts cancer, or any other disease, on people just for the hell of it.
My struggle is seeing someone beautiful and sweet and kind being eaten alive by this evil disease, while others who abuse and rape women and children, or murder people, or prey on the powerless for their own gratification, live healthy, long lives in relative comfort.
How is that fair?

These thoughts flood my heart and soul with anger and a strong desire for the world to be different, for the endings to be different, for evil diseases to only happen to the people who don’t love or appreciate or care for others, even while I’m trying to stem the tide and just deal with my personal grief.

I’ve always had a strong sense of justice and it’s just screaming now for relief and for something miraculous to happen.

Then I think about the friend who walked away, and I want to tell him that people aren’t disposable. Friendships are not about convenience or personal comfort, to be abandoned when things get a bit difficult.  Loyalty, love and compassion in a friendship aren’t things you should just be able to walk away from… especially when friends like that can be taken away from you at any moment.

I want both of them to come back. I want to be able to talk and laugh and play and cry and tell stories and listen and drink coffee and relax with them.

I don’t want them to be gone.

What Mothers’ Day means to this “childless” woman.

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Happy Mothers’ Day – to all mothers of beautiful children, children in heaven, furbabies, step-children, borrowed children, otherwise acquired children…

And to those like me whose babies were only in their hopes, wishes and dreams… I hope today is an opportunity for love rather than bitterness, positive rather than negative, happiness in our blessings rather than misery because of what never came to be.

I truly believe that life is what we make of it. If one chooses to be bitter and negative, that’s all they will have. If one chooses to be positive and look for opportunities to live, smile, laugh, feel and share, the whole world opens up for them.

My life has been so blessed because of the beautiful children I have been allowed to share, borrow, and help to raise. My family and friends have been so generous in this regard. Each of those kids is “mine” in a very special way, and I hold them in my heart and thank God for them every time I think of them.

Some are grown into amazing adults – some are married, some have their own children whom I am also allowed to share, some have gone on to forge the career they dreamed of. Some have just started to move into adult life, finding their feet and making their own way as they pursue their dreams. Some are still young enough for me to hug and discuss what’s happening at school or with their friends. Some are still babies; what an amazing blessing to be still be cuddling and loving “my” babies and seeing them grow, learn, wonder and return the love that is lavished upon them.

I will never try to tell you that being unable to have my own children was not heartbreakingly painful. However, that’s not what I want to focus on here. On this Mothers Day, I want people to know that I have grown and learned my way through that, and that I have been richly and deeply blessed by “my” children and by the wonderful families who share them with me. 

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