The need for connections

I thought I heard a knock on the door an hour ago. I got to the door to see there was no one but the face of my lovely neighbor Anu appeared, so I asked her,

“did you just hear a loud bang or knock?”

“No,” she replied “but the wind is very strong today”.

“Yes,” I said, “it’s the equinotical winds coming around even thought we still about three weeks away from the Spring Equinox here in Australia.” That sparked a longer conversation about my accident and she offered me a hug because I had been writing about that trauma just a short while earlier when the feelings of breathlessness and pressure were pressing on my chest and it seemed that even more tears were needing to be shared, so often I cry all alone.. How lovely it was to have that healing presence, affirmation and a hug. How comforting!

I love Anu and feel such an affinity with her, she is soft and kind and very interested in spirituality and we talk about signs and the afterlife after that, she was sharing about a new book she was reading on our hidden spiritual purpose – to love and to connect. As the conversation spun around different issues I mentioned her the near death experience of Anita Moorjhani who died of terminal lymphoma only to return to and explore all of the dynamics of how she got shut down as a sensitive and deeply feeling person as a child and has gone on to write two more books after telling her story about what she went through and witnessed of spiritual truths around life and death in her first book, Dying to Be Me.

That book came to me shortly after my older sister died in April 2014 after a long time of trauma and disability and brought me so much comfort, and although Anita is a little younger than my older sister was she also suffered being brutalized by patriarchal views that devalued young girls. Anita’s two subsequent books are What If This Is Heaven, and Sensitive is the New Strong.in which she explores the gifts and challenges of being born an empath and as one attuned to another dimensions of consciousness that is what is common to so many of us who walk this at times deeply painful and more sensitive pathway.

The healing hug of Anus really made my day yesterday, it helped the release of painful feelings at this time of the year and helped me deepen and also let go on some level, though after we separated I did feel shame and fear and embarrasement over possibly overwhelming Anu.

It was not long after that my nephew called me to say my living sister seemed to be going under again and they want to treat this with even more ECT. Could I please pick her up at 8.30 am from aged care and drop her at the mental health unit and then pick her up.. I am so opposed to the ECT but I have accepted its the path he choses to pursue and I told him due to my own PTSD I could not be there at 8.30 am and would only be able to collect her.. I really feel my nephew needed this help as he battles on alone trying to find solutions for the long term consequences of family multigenerational alcoholism and anxiety.. I could have chosen to be oppositional but at this stage as painful as it is to see where my sister is being taken I also do want her in my life..

It was not easy to get there and but Jasper and I made it using the Google maps navigational system that my nephew gave me, I had to tell the nurse to be very slow with directions due to my trauma and they all seemed kind, even the nurse who brought her out and my sis was pretty distressed that I had been called to be honest.. But she and Jasper got a little bit of connection time.

I have been thinking a lot about the urge to pull away from deep connection when trauma has caused us so much pain in families, especially after an hour and 13 minutes debrief with another family member born in the same year as my sister, she took care of her mother for many years and had to contend with her mental illness and anxiety.. Talking to Julie reminds me of the human limits of my ability to affect my sister’s life. But what I do see is that she is longing to see her son but he is so busy with work and family he hardly has the time, in a way this makes me glad that I did find that time to be with my own mother when she was older. I just see this longing in my sis and how alone she feels there. It really and truly does break my heart at times.