I had a deep insight today into how powerful the fear of feelings and overwhelm can be in our lives. I was sad to hear last night my brother had yet another skiing accident overseas in Utah last week, its a strange thing but I had an intuition last week that something may be wrong but it passed and my sister told me he woke up in an ambulance after the accident which is exactly what happened to me when I had the crash in the UK in June 2006… in the 1979 crash I came to in the car all crushed in after the collision with a telegraph pole.
This isn’t my brother’s first skiing accident.. He also told us he fell of a chair after one too many scotches one time at the Utah place. I had a post I wrote about my father to include with an image I found of him this week in his air force blues but I left it off as the photo seemed to touch some of my followers who liked it and I thought too much explanation may make it to ‘heady’. But what I wrote was that my brother was often on the end of harsh treatment, Dad dropped him into the swimming pool at the deep end when he was very young and he could not swim, he hates the coast now and is not a fan of ocean swimming, naturally. Dad also made him smoke a whole packet of cigarettes when he was only 6 after finding him and a family friend’s young son picking up butt dropped by the pelopas (resistance fighters) in Indonesia when they were stationed there in the late 40s and early 50s. Both boys were violently ill.. but it worked… my bro never smoked again!
I think sadly of how annoyed I have been with my brother in the past for his emotional distance from all of us and how we have been exiled from connection with some of his family due to difficulties between my Mum and his wife….I don’t know if the breeches will ever fully mend and just wish we did not judge each other as much, but life often shows we are ignorant of the inner life of others and more concerned with our own self centred wants, opinions, expectations and needs, not that we should not have them but we can at least try to extend ourselves into another person’s emotional reality. As an old therapist of mine used to say, in relationships the capacity to wonder about others leads to better relationships and renewed communications.
I emailed my brother today to send love. I cannot phone him as he doesn’t have a connection only calls us through some technological channel whereby the number shows up as Private Number. I saw a funny cartoon about this yesterday that said I respect your privacy when you call me from a private number.
My sister and I have offered to go over and visit my brother next time, as each year around the anniversary of Dad dying and Judith’s haemorrhage he goes over there to live and he would never invite us…. he liked the idea.. I want to have a closer relationship with my brother although at times he makes it hard by telling me my home is just ‘a demolition job’ something the local real estate agent doesn’t agree with……we are just on different wavelengths at times and no one is put on earth to fulfil our expectations or hopes, only to live theirs. According to brother you leave the past behind but I don’t believe we ever truly do, all we can do is lessen the power of its hold over us by having the courage to enter it and embrace the pain or joy or challenges or whatever. That said my brother does this on the material level when he commits to huge building projects and had to borrow lots of money or take other risks I am shier and more fearful in this domain.
In the end we are all different and there is no right or wrong… My brother held onto one of Dad’s old cardigans for years after he died, Mum often said that when she went to visit him at the office they used to share, by bro would be sitting there wearing Dad’s cardigan. I have seen my brother shed deep tears at my sister’s funeral. I feel sad for the times I got angry with him but know that was for a reason too… anger does not negate love at all, its part of the longing for it. This much I have learned along my recovery journey so far.
Emerging From The Dark Night 