Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s…
One of the hardest struggles is loving your adult child in your way and being interpreted by him/her in his/her own way. You struggle to keep them safe from the moment that they are conceived. Words of apology, even when you are not wrong, are said over and over like words fading into the mist. Sometimes, they are heard; most times, they are dismissed like so much air.
We do not stop loving our children no matter how old they are. The problem is that despite trying to create a positive and loving relationship, your love doesn’t seem to be as unconditional in another’s interpretation of the word. Semantics are in play — words are all we have to communicate with — and yet Noah Webster would be hard-pressed to come up with the right ones to soothe.
If we stopped speaking to everyone we loved, but disagreed with, no one would be married longer than a week. Loving and committing ourselves to someone means that we continue to try to communicate, comfort, or converse, even when we disagree or have beliefs that are different. Each person goes as far as they can with an idea or ideal. Sadly, there are instances where we behave badly. Yet, our human nature is to replay the bad ones and forget the millions of good ones. Each repetition of pain with a loved one, magnifies, enhances, and embellishes the anger in our mind. Our limits are different and therefore we each do as much as we can in creating strong relationships.
So many feel that they are not loved as they want to be. Perhaps, it is the massive amounts of media at our fingertips, and the talented scriptwriters, with actors who behave as directed, that leads us to believe in perfectly conceived happy endings. Every magical word is heard and observed and the healing begins.
As a parent, I still disappoint my children. When I was growing up, I sought not to disappoint my parents. Our societal demands and personal expectations have changed.
Someone else’s parents “really know” how to be better, more loving, more supportive, and encouraging. Of course, that degree of separation also makes for less psychological baggage and long-term accumulated psychic wounds.
We are so easily wounded because our hearts remain open to our children always and they seem to have the barbs to repeatedly pierce them. Yet, we keep trying, no matter how long we are here to make a difference, convince them otherwise, express that our love is wide, deep, and consuming, while assuring that we are here, and always at a distance.
I am glad that my children find comfort in their adult connections and am happy that they have found those people who love them in the precise manner that they desire to be loved. Someday, I hope I will be a member of that group.
After I wrote my post, A Love Letter to My Adult Child, I received many comments and saw the search words that others used to find it. I wrote that letter from my heart and I am glad that other parents found comfort in finding a way to speak to their adult children. We are proud of them, and for them, and appreciate their success from a distance.
Yet, I also saw the search words and phrases that people sought about the lack of feeling, appreciation, estrangement, and difficulty in communicating. Sadly, I heard from someone whose mother did not speak or acknowledge that individual for ten years.
Love denied turns into anger for some people. Misplaced as it is, it comes from a hole deep inside their soul that does not feel complete. That emptiness looks for something, or someone, to blame for feeling that way. Deep down there is insecurity and it cannot be filled with another’s love. The healing must come from the source of the pain within us. It is not an easy task and may take many years, or decades, to view the situation in another, more healing, compassionate and compromising way. It may take a lifetime to hear the apologies. The public lashing out and seeking validation for the pain does not resolve it, it just gives it an audience.
I know that I love and bless those close to me, and am sad for their pain, and mine. I pray that we can find a way to communicate, or at best, I spiritually send them my love and pray for their wellness. Blaming the easy target is a defense response and an expression of pain. Sadly, it grows and builds walls of anger around it, and in denying the source of the pain, builds it into a bigger and broader structure of disallowing. How sad. I cannot embrace all of the things that people do, but it does not prevent me from caring about them and wanting for their best life. Since I cannot know what that is, in the span of time, I send up my prayer to the Universe and hope that it is heard. I hope that the spiritual guardians that protect us all, and are unique to each person, keep them safe. The angry hurtful comments are meant to cause pain, they are a way of saying: See you rejected me, but as others laugh at you, I am renewed and encouraged in my anger and resistance.
The attempts at communication and understanding are undermined, ignored, and rejected in deliberate denial and hurt feelings. You are a child of the Universe. You are a child to all of those who know you, and care for you, as the person you have become. It is sad that there will be no communication, because in silence, distrust and regret grow. You are loved, but you would rather fight against it than acknowledge the truth and compromise that understanding takes. As it is not the love you wanted or deserved, you deepen the chasm within and fill it with all manner of anger, pain, refusal, lack, foreign thoughts and feelings. You create a break and seek to lash out rather than resolve in peace.
Family relationships can become so difficult and complicated. So much time spent in pain and anger; what a waste. When life is so short, and the power of love is so strong, why seek out electronic support rather than speaking directly to the human being who shares your DNA?
J.K. Simmons accepts the Best Supporting Actor statue at the Academy Awards on Sunday in Los Angeles. In his speech, he told the audience to call mom and dad.
“Call your mom. Call your dad.”
That simple call to action from J.K. Simmons went viral during Sunday’s Oscar telecast.
“Call your mom, everybody,” said Simmons on the air. “I’m told there’s like a billion people or so (watching). Call your mom. Call your dad, if you are lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet. Don’t text. Don’t e-mail. Call ’em on the phone. Tell them you love them, and thank them, and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you.”
Tapping his hand over his heart, he concluded, “Thank you, Mom and Dad.”
Incredibly, some people actually chose to negatively and sarcastically respond to his heartfelt speech. Even in the beauty of JK Simmons’ empathic and genuine life lesson learned, some chose to dismantle it into some 20 seconds of reflected fame and 140 characters of cynical disdain.
Today, we can be blocked, disconnected, deleted and dismissed. It is easy to be callous and careless, when you have one or two parents still alive. For all the emancipation and estrangement, a parent welcomes (except for unusual circumstances) an adult child’s attempt at communication and reconciliation.
You are blessed to be someone’s child.
Losing a parent hurts, even when you are older in years, because your heart never forgets. The person who used to tell you that he or she is proud of you is gone. The source of your personal history, and witness to it, is no longer there to be your cheerleader or sounding board.
Having experienced three losses so close together, I understand that feeling of grief and mourning. We continue to talk to our loved ones, but we cannot hear their replies.
Simmons told the Detroit Free Press that his Oscar comments were spontaneous and reflect what he’s learned since losing his father, who died in 2012, and his mother, who passed away in 2014.
“That sort of just fell out of my mouth, and it’s because I am a parent, because I loved my parents deeply and they were such wonderful parents and role models and we lost both of them in the last couple of years,” he said by phone. “I think it’s one of those things you can’t know until you know, like having a baby. You can’t know what it’s like until it happens. I had a wonderful relationship with my parents, but you can’t know what it feels like to be an orphan. Even if you’re an orphan when you’re 59 years old, you’re still an orphan. And it’s hard, so I want people to appreciate what they have.”
Make the most of the gifts that you have been given and recognize that it is, indeed, a gift.
Let those whom you love know just how much they matter ~ and come to appreciate the value and wisdom they carry.
Thank you JK Simmons for your life-affirming message, and your empathy, to turn your singular moment into one others could share and learn from.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for stopping by! I hope that you enjoy your visit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
theempathyqueen 