Dear Alex, Something you used to say to me...
September 23rd 2012
Dear Alex,
Rain pours, chill in the air, Autumn strikes the trees, and where was
the Summer? Grey skies loom and rain persists. Reflecting the feelings I fought
hard to overcome last week..
Sometimes I do wish I wasn’t so emotional, I was more practical in my
feelings and less ‘involved’. I am too sensitive, think too much, there’s a
down side as well as a positive side to this. I reproach myself endlessly, striving
to be better, do better. In one way it gives me the determination to challenge
myself, but then would I need to if I wasn’t so emotional?! Who knows… what I
do know though is that I do have to persevere with fighting on, and I do see it
as a fight. I fight to wake up and give thanks for the provisions, the people,
the incredible privileges and blessings I have in my life…and all this has to
be despite. It has to be ‘despite’ because we all have things in our life which
we find hard, we are troubled, we strive to get through busy days, never enough
time to do half of what we need to and more than enough time to just be
stressed constantly about it all. So, yes, I do see it as a battle, a
challenge, and I also do believe that to move in the right direction in our
lives, we cannot give in to how we may feel on a daily basis. If we never challenge
ourselves, we’ll always just carry on existing and never strive to be better or
more than we can be.
This challenging myself became vehemently part of my conscious and
subconscious way of thinking and feeling. (talking in my situation) it would be
something I could do, to give up, give in to the grief, the implications this
has on me, on you, the kids, on us as a family, and wider afield. But if I do
that I will be shirking my biggest responsibility. Being a mum. Showing the
kids that life throws things at you, and whether or not you eel they are right
or justified, unfair or whatever, you have to be the best you can be.
The phrase you always used in your charismatic, determined belief you
had in the Most High and telling me how at the end of it all, it won’t and it
isn’t between us and everyone else, it’s between us and God. You used to
encourage me to be a ‘lion in my own consciousness’. I love this image. A
fearsome animal prowling round, challenging our being, our thoughts, a hugely
powerful animal. This is one of the biggest lessons you taught me, and I
maintain this in my life, in everything. In particular now. When I think I may
break, fall, to get up, withstand and refocus my thoughts. It’s mental
retraining and it’s constant work. Yes, lots, I sit and weep, I feel lonely I
miss you, and I’m not talking about that. But the actions on how we feel. If I
constantly acted on the way I felt, I’d be a bitter, miserable intolerant
person who no-one would want to know! I don’t always keep up the mental fight,
I get tired, clouded, too sad to surmount it. Then I say to myself, ‘OK, you’ve
had you’re time, now get up and man up!’ I try and challenge the grief by
acting, being proactive and trying to show the kids how to be calm in the
storm.
I often need to remind myself to just sit, be still (not physically,
mentally) and despite the whirling wind and thunder storms going on around me,
whatever may be causing them, and centre myself, refocus-be a lion in my own consciousness.
That is you who taught me that.
So this week I feel I have harnessed that again. I am focussed, I am
asking the Most High for strength to be light, I don’t want to be darkness and
misery…And that does take work and commitment.
Armed again with force and conviction that I am not letting you feel my ‘I
hope you’ll get there’ flippant vibes, but that you will feel seeping into your
soul my determination and conviction and belief that you will…
Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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