What does it truly mean to see into the heart of a person? I have just read a post someone in recovery wrote about their mother sharing how they did not see their mother as a person, more as a caretaker, they also shared the resentment they felt with their mother tried to date again afte their father died.. It bought back the reminder of my mother meeting her second husband two years after my father died. At the time I was overseas and it was only when I arrived back home towards the end of 1987 that I was told and at the same time told my mother planned to marry this man, which was a shock.. My sister told me only two weeks ago that Mum made that decision (which she later came to regret) as my sister in law told her if she was seeing someone and having physical intimacy with them, people ‘would talk’, so Mum ended up marrying a man out of loneliness that she was fond of but never loved, and who, in the end, began to annoy her and some of my family members.
My stepdad Ross was a very kind man.. Like my father he was born in Holland and still residing there (unlike my father who escaped just prior) when the Netherlands came under Nazi occupation… Ross actually narrowly escaped arrest by the Nazis on several occasions and at one time had to leave Holland without saying goodbye to his mother or any other family to stay alive. His mother ended up having a nervous breakdown as a result as for many years she did not know whether her son was alive or dead.. Certain members of my family got very bored by Ross going over and over his history, but when I got sober 5 years after Ross and Mum married I began to be interested in his need to keep reliving such memories associated with an intense time of trauma.. Before he met Mum Ross actually married a bright young woman who became an alcoholic, so the alcoholism connection with our family tied in here..
Ross was a good support to my Mum in the years they shared, they got to travel together, he was lovely to my sister Judith who was in care for all of those years, but to cut a long story short, in time Ross began to develop dementia and out of kindness to my mother told her he was going to leave and go home to live with one of his sons, since he knew Mum had the care of Judith and didn’t want to put Mum under any undue pressure as she was also getting older.
Those final years of Ross’s life were sad and lonely, his sons didn’t want him living at home and put him into a little flat.. After Jonathan left me, Ross would often ring me at the coast to tell me how much he loved and missed my mother and how she had, for all the years they were together taken such good care of her… Sadly Mum didn’t miss Ross, she was relieved to be alone again..but was genuinely upset to get the news from his brother when he died some time around 2008.
Reading the bloggers story I thought today about Ross.. I thought about how hard it was to connect to Ross from the heart at times and how much I wished my own father was there…but I also felt so sad for the way what was written in the other blog bought up how, so often, we don’t see into the heart of others.. especially family members or relatives.. and how they may carry a hidden history and many feelings and experiences deep inside they never get to share or even talk about…
This kind of disconnection from another person’s emotional reality does not make true intimacy possible and it interested me after reading Nancy Van Dyken’s book on narcissism again this week that she bought up the point that in an externally oriented culture we so often don’t connect from the heart or share our true and deepest self, most personal experiences and inner wounds or vulnerabilities.. We so often put on defences, get lost in distractions or images, or fall foul of those who in putting on a tough defence often hide a deeper vulnerability and humanity inside..I also thought, after a conversation earlier today with a dear friend who experiences a lack of emotional intimacy in his own relationship of how the current situation of having to face the fact that as humans we are vulnerable might encourage us to open up more on some level and be less externally focused.. people spending time together may actually be a time that could best be used in opening up and getting to know each other better from the inside out, rather than the outside in…
For myself I find comfort in certain online groups and in this blog where vulnerable, empathic people share their true self and honest histories, emotional vulnerabilities as well as their strengths, journeys and ways of coping. Here behind a computer screen some of us work in depth to try to express from this place of emotional honesty and when we do, I like to believe it encourages others to do so too…
In my own family since my sister and mother died I have begun to develop deeper relationships with those who are able to open and find I cannot connect well to those who are closed.. I see the way my own sister gets misunderstood by her own family at times and think of how her sons know so little of how her life was as a child and even an adolescent.. Do they see their mother as a person or an object? Do they relate from a place of deep feeling or one of selfishness or judgement?
In my sobriety I made a special effort to ask my own mother so much about her life.. in her later years with me she got to share her pain over my grandmothers lack of presence and she opened up about her own issues of neglect.. In time I grew in understanding of the wounds I carry, wounds that even now, sometimes stop me up short but at times I know I also did not show as much mercy as I could have….And yet over time I have also found compassion for the wounds that were passed on, together with a depth of understanding.. Just a moment ago, after lunch I was outside sweeping the leaves and talking to Mum.. “I am so sorry Nana never cuddled you, Mum that must have been so hard.” I then heard my mother say “don’t forget to call your brother… I know he puts on a front but he is a true softy underneath it all.” And as I thought of my sister who died 6 years ago I thought of the tears my brother shed as he stood at the lecturn giving his eulogy….and of how he shed similar tears when speaking of my mother at hers, yes, most of his eulogy was about externals and facts… but the heart of him was struggling, I saw that, which is why at that point I moved towards him to put a hand on his body.. I know now that in this time of social distancing this may even be prevented, how sad…not much more to say now…my blog morphs in content as I write according to what flows out.. Today I am aware of the fact that I can see deeper than the surface and for that I am grateful but I still don’t always get others, for this to happen, for us to truly ‘get’ each other we must be able to articulate what is in our hearts and also be open to looking a bit deeper than just the surface or image shown to us. I like to think that in coming years as the focus possibly shifts as a result of our confrontation with our own potential mortality in the wake of Coronal Virus, this becomes a more inward seeing, compassionate, heart centred world.
Emerging From The Dark Night 