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#189486 - 09/07/09 01:08 PM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: Mountain Ash]
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Member
Registered: 03/22/05
Posts: 4876
Loc: Canada
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Jabber, I've been wrestling with this whole "why" stuff for sometime now. It's still hazy and evolutionary, but I think I hear the message that all situations and circumstances are the result of choices...if not our own, than other people's choices impacting on us. When it comes to changing other people's circumstances, it's a spider's web of choices and "allowing" at play, we're not always able to infiltrate or change the choices that others are making for/upon each other. The only people we can change are ourselves...we can change how our choices derail our own lives, or how our choices impact destructively on other people's lives. We can change how we deal with the impact that other people's choices have on us, but we can't change them. We can only try to inform, request, pray that other people make the best choices in their lives, but when they don't, then it's our responsibility to change how we respond or allow the impact of those choices to change our own lives.
I don't know the "why" of death and suffering, though I think it has to do with a much bigger picture than we can see. Hunger and poverty are the products of choices...again, an enormous spider web of political sabotage, greed, unwillingness for those who have to share with those who have not...the list of what has contributed to the suffering in the world is endless. We often feel we can have little impact on those situations. But I think we just start where we are, with what we can do...I sponsor two children...it's not feeding the world, but I'm helping feed two little mouths and hopefully helping them get the education they need to step out of that cycle of poverty.
The "why" of Gary and all who die too soon is just too elusive. I can't go chasing after it anymore, though sometimes it does break through and I do cry ouch again. But I'm realizing that his story is/was his story. His "why" might not be for me to know at this time. I need to focus on how I can change me and my health and my mindset so that I can have a more loving, compassionate, liberating impact on my little corner of the world. It's not up to just one of us to change the world, it's our responsibility as a community to change the way we live and interact with each other, that's how poverty and suffering will be eased. One person, one tiny change at a time. That's all I can figure out of all my "why" questing.
Edited by Eagle Heart (09/07/09 01:12 PM)
_________________________
When you don't like a thing, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
(Maya Angelou)
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#189487 - 09/07/09 01:21 PM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: Eagle Heart]
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Member
Registered: 03/22/05
Posts: 4876
Loc: Canada
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MA, that book sounds heartwrenching. I do indeed identify with the idea that the loss has to be accommodated. The journey through grief for me has been exactly that, learning how to co-exist with the holes in my life, how to fit my new reality around the losses.
For me it wasn't just Gary. The loss of both parents, Gary, so many beloved in-laws (hubby lost 4 siblings and 2 much-loved cousins within that same timespan) and the rest of my own family due to other circumstances...my entire world fell apart in too short of a time to cope graciously with. Hubby and I figured out that between the two of us we lost 16 significant family members within 9 years...that doesn't include the excruciating situation within my own family after Gary died, which may end up being irreparable.
Yes, it takes hard work and and heart-wrenching journey through "the madness of grief" just to learn how to accommodate all the losses and learn to live beyond the agony-of-absence.
I think I've turned the corner on that journey and can see more light than darkness now. I think (and there are some here who might heartily agree) that I swam in some murky madness of my own at times, but thank God for the love and compassion of so many here...that love became my ladder out of that madness and back onto solid ground.
Thank you, MA, for your constant love and care. I love hearing your wise voice whispering peace and courage into my the ears of my heart. I hear you!
_________________________
When you don't like a thing, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
(Maya Angelou)
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#189491 - 09/07/09 02:20 PM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: Eagle Heart]
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Member
Registered: 12/30/05
Posts: 3027
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Well I so understand when all the bedrock of family is lost. I knew that had been an impact on my life..maybe even trained in counselling due to my own grief..."Phsysician heal thyself" THEN A rather remarkable event happened to me..a newspaper advert from a researcher sought people with my birth family name came into my hands.. I responded and boy was my computer busy. The Canadian lady had at her fingertips a wealth of information which is ongoing at present. I found I knew some facts correctly..other were blurred. we discovered names...found coincidences and for me an interesting process happened. I grieved. For the widow who went on to become my darling Grandfathers mother.She must have been through a dark place..but without her...my lineage would not have appeared. We are all complex beings..and the wonderful thing is being here today in the here and now. I had physical symptoms...felt at peace with some facts and fretted over others...e g phuemonia for someone in 1919 during the flu pandemic...glad antibiotics and nursing can help that now.the death of a boy child in 1886 other passings. I SAW UNFOLD A DRAMA ALL OF MY OWN...Better than any book...
My conclusion is that all loss is grief..smaller variations of the ceasing of life..that we can and will work through the lesser losses so that we live fully... Pain is helped by anothers love and concern..but ultimatly we all work things out for ourselves.But a little help from others is a salve.
I did have plans to do some deeper research..put it off..then bang..all this happens..and it has been a wonderful thing for us here...Healing takes many forms and fate does lend a land now and then..
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#189517 - 09/08/09 02:23 AM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: Mountain Ash]
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Member
Registered: 03/22/05
Posts: 4876
Loc: Canada
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I've been thinking all evening about this, about grief, about how it evolves a person in a completely different direction than before the loss. Two trains of thought: first, I wonder how much criminal activity has its roots in grief...as MA says, all loss is grief...so during our early lives, it's possible to encounter loss in various ways...loss of a parent - physically through divorce or death, or emotionally through the arrival of a sibling or a myriad of other ways; loss of a sibling, loss of stability, loss of a home, loss of lifestyle...loss of childhood through abuse of any kind...I wonder, if a child struggles with enough loss in those years, I wonder if it completely changes the direction of that child's life/mindset/neediness/behavior patterns...which then translates into various neurosis, psychosis, anger and trust issues - which is fodder for lashing out through criminal activity (other ways to lash out as well, but this was the direction of my thinking, sort of tying it into the whole discussion on how suffering is the result of a myriad of choices that impact on our/other people's lives).
My second train of thought was more inward. It's not my intention to always drag my grief into every conversation here. And yet, it leaks out. No matter how far along this road I think I've come, the grief is still the defining undercurrent in my life. Everything comes back to the grief. There is another discussion in the forums about the old days...as I read through the list, it made me cry...I can't go there, I can't think about the old days, because it reminds me of how much I've lost, how everyone who was vital to me back then is gone now. It still hurts. And I couldn't participate in that discussion because it would have been too sad and i didn't want to pull the conversation down by yet again injecting the issue of grief into it. Everything I read, everything I try to talk about here always drills me down to the grief. I can't seem to keep it out of the conversations. It has completely changed my life and soul and nothing is or ever will be the same as "before". I'm moving on, yet, it's only a picture, a word, a smell, a thought, a memory away...no topic, no conversation, nothing is exempt from those intricate tendrils of grief.
Edited by Eagle Heart (09/08/09 02:30 AM)
_________________________
When you don't like a thing, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.
(Maya Angelou)
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#189520 - 09/08/09 09:05 AM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: Eagle Heart]
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Member
Registered: 12/30/05
Posts: 3027
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Yes.. I strongly believe that events ..traumas will set another path as a child/person struggles to work through greif/loss...Loss can be loss of their dream.. It can make a person sad translated to being mad...with anger. Just like love can be so passionate it makes a person crazy at the early stage of connectiong..loosing someone/something could set the scene for most any anti social actions.Those who turn things inward hurt themselves (and those who love them)and then another set of grief and loss starts. But all is not lost...the arts...hobbies being made to feel that a person matters can heal..as does any bond with another..pet/community/church even here on the site Dotsie started. Yet even here we may bring past sorrow so complicated that it be unresolved.Others in any group can be blind to their own vulnerability and not "see" how words can hurt another person. No one woman on this site has all the answers...but together we may be able to help.External input by face to face connection is important.Be that in a shop or with a friend. Wording carefully how we speak to another in any group is important..
Your second point Eagle...reading about the old days..this is a gauge to your feelings.Your brain knows your pain. I get upset at things I read everywhere..in books/paper and hear on radio.. There is no need to stop mentioning your sorrow or your loved brother..Never feel that. Lots for me to think about from your post..wish we could walk the wee roads here..laugh and cry and hug. take care...
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#189799 - 09/12/09 03:47 PM
Re: A Heartwarming Story about my Brother
[Re: chatty lady]
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Member
Registered: 06/23/06
Posts: 3703
Loc: London UK
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Chat, that's precisely what Francois Mitterand (French President)said when he reverted from atheism. He suffered from cancer and found he needed to cling to hope more than rationale thought.
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