People don't realize how these holidays can be painful for so many. Some with fathers who are no longer here, absent fathers, fathers who have Alzheimer's and don't remember their kids, so many reasons. Feel hugged.
This brought up lots of emotions. I can clearly remember at about 3 years of age thinking you need to learn how to care for yourself because no one here is going to do it. I inflicted wounds on my children because I never learned what a parent should do/be. My children are better parents than I was/am. It seems like I have spent the last 60 years trying to heal my ancestors. Once again your writing has set me thinking. Thank you
Cynthia, it takes so much courage to admit when we hurt the ones we love due to our own hurts and ineptitudes. I deeply respect you for sharing that here. I had a similar "awareness" with my family. I have been working for years to tend the roots that need tending and separating them from the ones that need to rot. It is meaningful work and it can last a lifetime.
My own father died recently. Your writing gave me a way to begin to look at those mouldering roots for myself. Like you, mothering is my natural happy state. Your father and my father appear to be cut from the same cloth, and only during the last few years while I took care of my father's mistress until her death and then my father until his death did I see that the men in my life have also come from that cloth. My own grown sons are spectacularly present, kind, nurturing loving men.
I didn't mean to start an essay, Justice. Thank you for exposing some deep root rot for me. You have some magic in your writing and I thank you for exposing your own pain to heal me.
Oh, Kate. I am sorry for your loss. Those roots are deep, ancestral, collective not tied solely to our body or of the body of the people who bore us. It's good to let them rot. What compassion to take care of the man's mistress, and himself. Your thoughts are most welcome. And I am glad that the sharing of my own brought some space to reflect and heal.
I felt so sad for you reading this and much love to you. ❤️
Thank you. The sadness today is that the friend I mentioned is in fact gone. A good man gone from this world.
People don't realize how these holidays can be painful for so many. Some with fathers who are no longer here, absent fathers, fathers who have Alzheimer's and don't remember their kids, so many reasons. Feel hugged.
Yes, it's a painful reminder for some of what's not here, what's not normal. I think it's important to honor the grief as well.
This brought up lots of emotions. I can clearly remember at about 3 years of age thinking you need to learn how to care for yourself because no one here is going to do it. I inflicted wounds on my children because I never learned what a parent should do/be. My children are better parents than I was/am. It seems like I have spent the last 60 years trying to heal my ancestors. Once again your writing has set me thinking. Thank you
Cynthia, it takes so much courage to admit when we hurt the ones we love due to our own hurts and ineptitudes. I deeply respect you for sharing that here. I had a similar "awareness" with my family. I have been working for years to tend the roots that need tending and separating them from the ones that need to rot. It is meaningful work and it can last a lifetime.
My own father died recently. Your writing gave me a way to begin to look at those mouldering roots for myself. Like you, mothering is my natural happy state. Your father and my father appear to be cut from the same cloth, and only during the last few years while I took care of my father's mistress until her death and then my father until his death did I see that the men in my life have also come from that cloth. My own grown sons are spectacularly present, kind, nurturing loving men.
I didn't mean to start an essay, Justice. Thank you for exposing some deep root rot for me. You have some magic in your writing and I thank you for exposing your own pain to heal me.
Oh, Kate. I am sorry for your loss. Those roots are deep, ancestral, collective not tied solely to our body or of the body of the people who bore us. It's good to let them rot. What compassion to take care of the man's mistress, and himself. Your thoughts are most welcome. And I am glad that the sharing of my own brought some space to reflect and heal.