ONLY LOVE...

Started about two weeks ago and only finished now:
 
My eldest son is going through another transition.  His work is moving him to another city far away, so he moved out of his old home at the end of July and moved in with my youngest son and I for two weeks. 
 
Our house is small… so it was hectic with all his stuff here, but somehow, we made it all fit in the lounge area while he sorted through it and decided what to take with and what to leave.  So, we were comfortable.  I also emptied two large drawers for him to use.  It’s all a long story, but to keep it really short and to the point (which is usually impossible for me), I just wanted to write about what a blessed time it was to have him here and to share such lovely moments with him.
 
I can remember the years of experiencing mother-agony, when he was so lost as a result of the abuses, tragedies and losses he experienced as a child.  Judgments and lack of understanding love from the world added to his sufferings and made things so much worse.  He withdrew from not only the world, but even from me.  During that time of separation from my son, I suffered deeply… and the longing for my son’s love to return to me added to deep guilt that I suffered for not being able to spare him from the abuse and struggles he had faced as he was growing up, no matter how hard I tried (and I did indeed try so hard).  I truly suffered the most agonising constant and unbearable anguish while our hearts were separated as a result of his difficult childhood. 
 
I wrote many poems expressing the pain I bore over all those years… one of them below: 
 
LOST... UNTIL “ETERNITY”
© All rights reserved ~ www.pattyskeys.co.za
 
So much sorrow in knowing I cannot fix our love
To the way that it was before
To the days when you’d sing to me: “Mother of Mine”,
And I’d sing to you: “Ben”.
 
So much terrible pain fills the void between then and now
So much genuine love we shared then
LOST!  Lost somewhere... somehow
Lost in the darkest foreboding forest...
The one I used to know
The one I visited when I was a child
 
So, if anyone understands... sadly, I do!
A very lonely, hurting place where love and trust are trapped
With seemingly no possible escape!
No hope for a sunrise tomorrow
No hope in a genuine embrace... like before
No hope in ever knowing the truth again
The unconditional love we once shared
Lost forever… here, in this desolate place.
 
And so, I know all that is left is for me to hold on
For Eternity
That beautiful place
The only promise that still exists
On the other side of this awful tormenting divide
There, one lovely day... to meet you again
My son
A mother’s love that won’t ever give up
A loving memory returned and understood completely
To trust once again in our love... mother and son
I will endure for that day I know will come
Where this horrible pain can no longer destroy...
 
UNFAILING HOPE
DIVINE HEALING
TRUST RESTORED
HEAVEN’S LOVE
 
NO MORE TEARS
REJOICE!
 
~ Panayiota
(March 2013)
 
One thing that Life could NOT take away from me was my love for my son.  And I knew from my own experience, that only TRUE and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE could ever lift the curse that had so cruelly torn us apart. 
 
I wrote:
 
ONLY LOVE CAN LIFT THE CURSE!
© All rights reserved ~ www.pattyskeys.co.za
 
He doesn’t want people to know him,
For he no longer knows himself,
He doesn’t want people to feel for him,
Because he no longer feels much for himself!
 
He doesn’t want people to celebrate for him,
For he celebrates not for himself,
He doesn’t want people to love him,
For he doesn’t love himself!
 
Don’t live for him; don’t die for him,
Don’t even exist for his life,
For he’s no longer living or dead,
And he doesn’t exist for himself!
 
He denies that he has a problem,
Yet he struggles in a lonely place,
Where he’s tried to rub out his own feelings,
And has even erased his own face!
 
Don’t hate him for who he’s becoming,
You will only make things so much worse!
Love him regardless, I beg of you,
For Only Love can lift the curse!
 
~ Panayiota
(8 June 2000)
 
And so, I never, ever gave up on loving my son and believing in his beautiful spirit… the spirit I recognised in him when he was just a little boy.  Over the years of my anguish, I hid my tears and pain from him and kept contact by regularly sending brief (unemotional) message via WhatsApp or SMS mostly… just a “Hello… Have a happy day… Lots of love, Mom” kind of message.  
 
I followed through with this for years and in so doing, I proved my absolute truth… that Only Love can lift any curse… because it did!  I have my son back today.  I have his trust and his love.  We are able to have long, deep philosophical conversations on a level of mutual understanding and connection. 
 
I ache now, only because of those who still reject, judge and condemn him negatively and continue to project their negative curses onto him.  If only, they could see him in the way I do, they wouldn’t dare add to his struggles with their neglectful and hurtful judgments.  They would do all in their power to spend more time with him.  To accept and acknowledge his uniqueness and true worth in such a way as to strengthen him and lift him from all that has hurt him and held him back and still threatens to continue hold him back today, because that’s what childhood trauma does… it’s a lifelong threat and struggle that does not need to be added to by a harsh and judging world!
 
I was so grateful to my daughter and her husband, and my brother and sister in law and youngest son, all of whom went out of their way to acknowledge my eldest son with their genuine love during his two-weeks stay here.  They also treated his three children with such patient love and accepting goodness when they visited over the weekend.  Acknowledging, accepting and loving his children is also acknowledging, accepting and loving him… just as loving my children and grandchildren is the same as loving me… there’s no half measures or in-betweens.
 
I’ve been questioning love and trust just lately…
My youngest son inherited his deceased dad’s car recently and we asked permission to park it inside our complex.  Our house’s (one car) carport opens onto the road, so we needed to park his car inside for safety.  At a small monthly fee, this was granted.  He was told to park next to an outhouse on the grass.  A couple of times he was shifted to new positions inside the complex by residents, but eventually, he had his parking on the grass against the outhouse wall and all seemed good for quite some time… at least his car was safe at night. 
 
Around the same time as my eldest son came to stay for two weeks while he prepared to move to work in another city, we asked permission to have a gate put into our back wall, so that my youngest son could get to and from his car inside the complex without going all the way around on the street to enter at the main gate.  Everything seemed great, until my eldest son was also given permission to park for two weeks (only two weeks) inside the complex. 
 
My old next door neighbours who I had gotten so close to over time… (shared vegetables, herbs and preserves from my garden on occasions, had friendly chats with, written regular love notes to via WhatsApp), suddenly decided that two cars parked on the grass at the back was just too much!  They did not come to us, but the old lady… “my friend”… went around rallying support from other neighbours to demand that the cars were moved from the grass area and to refuse us a gate in our back wall!  She is someone who is already well-known for causing problems for residents in the complex, but up till now, we’d been (as I imagined), best of friends!  (I refuse to discuss neighbours with other neighbours, so I was never caught up in that. If I had any gripes, I would go only to one member of the body corporate who I’ve gotten to know and as far as I can remember, I only needed to go to her one when our new direct neighbours were crashing into the carport gate we share and causing our wall to split.
 
So, just like that, our dream gate in the back wall was refused and she was suddenly complaining bitterly about the dead grass under my youngest son’s car.  She caused such a palaver, that a kind friend inside the complex… the body corporate lady, invited both my boys to park at her house, just to keep the peace. 
 
I had longed for that back-wall gate ever since I moved here, so that we’d not only would I have access to the park area, but also so that I could get close to some old folk.  When I left my last area in 2012, I left behind a dear old friend, Norma (it will be the memory of her birthday on the 24th).  I love old folk so much.  Recently an old man died in the house directly behind us in the complex… if I had my back wall gate, I believe that I would have spent time with him, and perhaps even have been able to be with him when he died, so that he didn’t have to be alone. 
 
I have since registered and paid to do a Sacred Dying Doula course, because I never want another old person in our complex to die alone.  It might take me a while to complete the course because I have so many other commitments, such as getting my book done, but I have longed to do this course for many years.  I have sat with many a person crossing over the veil during my nursing years and in my personal life and I find it one of the  most sacred blessings to share with another human being… it’s one place where  my nurturing love is totally accepted and appreciated in every way, and where I can feel totally free to give all the love that I can to another human being… it’s very, very special to me.
 
Whatever happens, I am very hurt about yet another loss of what I believed was dear friends next door.  I have decided that I will not go out of my way to get close to anyone in this complex again, because it seems to me that love and friendship can no longer be trusted freely in this world.
 
If anyone is lonely, I will open my door and heart to them if they visit me, but I will avoid getting close to anyone again here otherwise.  So even if the old lady next door ever needs me, I will be there for her, because that’s who I am… but until such time, I will have nothing more to do with her, because she has betrayed my trust and my friendship with her.
 
My eldest son was going through his own struggle over the last two weeks.  Moving away from his children was very painful to him.  For the first week, he shared real tears with me.  I saw when his children (my beloved grandchildren) came to stay the weekend, what a wonderful dad he is.  I saw how much wisdom he used in dealing with an argument they were having and how beautifully they responded to his wise and gentle counsel. 

It hurt me greatly that selfish, judging neighbours had to add to the hurt by putting their patch of grass before friendship and neighbourliness… before love… before caring for another human beings needs… and to shatter our dream of a back-wall gate with such a cutting, wagging, cruel tongue!  YES… I AM HURT!  Friendship meant NOTHING to her… I had thrown my pearls to swine yet again!
 
I will end with this powerful poem
I absolutely love this poem below.  I know that I share the same poems, etc. in more than one post, but those are what are important for me to illustrate what I’m saying on the day I write, and I’m sure not everyone reads all my (mostly long-winded) posts, so I feel it’s okay to repeat where necessary.  I hope you enjoy this one below… it’s beautiful to me.
 
Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
by Charles C. Finn
September 1966
 
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.
 
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.
 
But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.
 
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.
 
I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!
With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.
 
Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.
 
Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.
 
https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/4080792/jewish/A-Psychotherapists-Shema-in-Auschwitz.htm/fbclid/IwAR2D68KsanIbsYxL_iB5umEJdb9g2Wmdjv4p6VVWDj8rqmdc6qSUaEofcXc#utm_medium=page_tools&utm_content=desktop&utm_source=FB

​https://themighty.com/2017/08/life-impacting-symptoms-of-complex-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/
 
https://themighty.com/2019/03/habits-living-with-complex-ptsd/?utm_source=newsletter_mental_health&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_mental_health_2019-08-12&$deep_link=true
 
Thank you for sharing and for all those who read my blog posts.  I appreciate your support very much.
 
~ Panayiota

p.s. GOOD NEWS!
Good news is, that we have had our bathroom makeover done… I can’t wait to share about that.  I need more time to put some pictures together.  We have the most beautiful dream come true bathroom ever now and I am so grateful to my daughter and son in law for overseeing the purchasing choices and work on that… I love them so much!