Author: kidsaregifts20

Times six.

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Two summers ago, on a dry Saturday morning in London, Si and I set out for a walk. We headed to our local park, Streatham Common. As we took a turn into the Rookery, we noticed a young man sitting on the third step of the wide, well-trodden staircase descending towards the South-East. He held his bent head in both his hands.

An invitation.

I took a deep breath, softly stepped up to him with a ‘Hi. Good morning.’ He slowly raised his head and mirrored back my faint smile. None of our smiles reached our eyes. They were not real yet, only polite.

We got talking and forgot about the walking. Miles was in his late thirties, a father of two. He had been unable to work for a few months because of disabling symptoms that suggested something like Chronic Fatigue/ ME/ Long Covid. Of late his stress levels had rocketed as his employer had started suggesting ‘malingering’ in his letters. Even though his GP understood and validated his medical condition, his employer showed no understanding.

We gathered for coffee in the park on two more occasions that year. We enjoyed our chats, kept in touch and met up regularly even though not frequently. This year, he tells us he has been dismissed from his job after a “fair process” for “gross misconduct” for being physically and mentally unable to work. Gross misconduct includes physical violence, theft and fraud, intoxicated while at work and similar serious offences.

A study at King’s College London looked at the causes of death in 2000 patients with CFS/ME conducted over the years, 2007-2013. A total of 17 patients died in that period – eight died from cancer, five from suicide, and four from other causes. When compared to the general population, less than one suicide would be expected in a study population of this size. Yet five deaths by suicide were recorded. This means that, after controlling for age and other factors, the rate of deaths by suicide in this study was approximately six times higher in people with CFS than in the general population.

The reasons for this vulnerability are – poor quality of life with no hope for relief, loss of employment, finances, and/or relationships, chronic pain, secondary depression, and other associated mental and/or physical illnesses.

Miles felt he was losing his sense of self as a capable human being with integrity. People didn’t always believe or understand him. Maybe he is what they called him, a malingerer. This is hard on his family, but they support him all they can. The kids are delightful. He still has good days and bad, still has serious brain fog he cannot work through sometimes, still can’t do much but he tries his best. He carries a lot of shame for this thing that happened to him. He feels trapped.

No tests can prove his diagnosis. No definitive treatment is available yet.

Resource: Action for ME: https://www.actionforme.org.uk/

Room With a View in Santiago

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The old city shutters stood open.

Not to admit the world, for the world was already here; only to let it drift through old granite, through warm air, through the afternoon.

Below, children called, trolleys rattled over stone, shopkeepers laughed, voices crossed and uncrossed like birds above a square.

Nothing argued. Nothing needed to win. The street was not divided.

Beside me, a small dog claimed a borrowed mat with complete confidence that love had already prepared it.

I thought of my son.

I thought of all that seems absent, and of all that love refuses to call lost.

The heart did not deny its longing. The afternoon did not deny its peace.

Neither excluded the other.

Then, without announcement, a smile from a waiter, a bowl of water that had not been requested, churros that had not been ordered, a kindness that carried no invoice.

And I understood, if only for this hour,
that there are moments which cannot be bought because they were never for sale;

moments which cannot be earned because they were never wages;

moments which ask nothing except that they be allowed.

Nothing was missing.

Nothing was excluded.

Nothing was demanded.

Nothing had to justify itself.

The 5pm cathedral bells found their place among the voices, and nothing was disturbed.

Time found its place without disturbing the timeless.

The voices still rose from the street below.

The light still rested upon the granite.
The dog still slept.

Love still loved.

And for this afternoon,
everything already was.

  • By a dad at CORe at the end of his pilgrimage, Camino de Santiago.

The garden

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No home to return to this time. A few months ago, we were feeling un-anchored while planning our upcoming summer-break in the UK. No home to return to this time.

I sat down, thinking, this was a chance to make a home in another part of the UK for a few weeks, wondering where that might be. By the sea. Somewhere quiet and quirky, not-too-long a train-ride from London. Devon! We’d spent a delightful few days with friends there  last year. I looked up houses for short lets and a cabin appeared. It was available for the duration. It was solely solar powered with a good fridge-freezer and all amenities. Most of all it boasted of an array of outdoor spaces. The photographs were a feast. We booked it before it was taken. In our minds our holiday had begun.

On the day, our hosts were at the car park to receive us and help us with our luggage. They asked us if we knew the story of the garden on the clifftop, where our cabin was located. We didn’t.

Jason was an accomplished young geologist, working at a Diamond mine in Angola.

“On 8th November 1998, the Yetwene mine was attacked by rebels. Several of his colleagues were killed and Jason along with 3 expatriates and 5 Angolans were last seen being herded into the bush.  For many years the families were led to believe their men folk were alive.  What followed the disappearance of the men is a story still waiting to be told. When someone ‘disappears’ in such circumstances, it means there is no defined moment when ALL family members can accept the missing person IS dead.  Each person comes to accept that inevitability at different times, in different ways – and even then, there can be an extended period of time when you believe he’s dead but hope he’s alive.  Oscillating between those two states.  He must be dead, but he may be alive!

When the hammer fell signalling this plot was now the Pope family’s – it was an emotional moment for Nev and Alan.  Did it mean they both accepted their son was dead? (Sadly, the answer was “No”.)”

Of all the places we could’ve landed up in, we are here, in a memorial garden by the sea, with the family of a young man who did not come home, a family that actively sought answers, remembered and talked about things and lives that matter.

Can anyone claim to know which is worse?

Knowing your son is dead or not knowing if he is?

This question is invalid as no one can judge any loss as ‘good’, ‘better’ or ‘worse’. I cannot know how Nev felt then and how she feels now. She cannot know how I feel. Sometimes I can hardly identify my own feelings. How can I claim to know anything of others? No one can. It may be a good guess but only in the head. Not in the bones, the middle of the chest. Not in the experience of the drag of gravity.

This is a joyful garden of fragrant pink roses and hand-made big-eyed metallic spiders, massive and tiny, dotted around. It has a playful feel to it. It is clearly, all about love.

If the path of grief is a loving humbling pilgrimage, this is a perfect shelter along the way.

(Resource: Circle of Remembrance – peer-led support groups for bereaved parents)

If not now, when?

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‘This is difficult.’

‘What I need is absolution.’

‘I don’t deserve it. I failed to be a good parent to my son.’

The subject of our meeting last evening was self-compassion, one of the recurring themes in the Circle of Remembrance. It was an opportunity to revisit the ways in which we can be our own best friend. As we have been encouraging the practice of self-compassion in the group for as long as we’ve existed, I assumed it would be an everyday practice for most of our members.

I was surprised to hear the above responses coming forth. The jaws of the beast of guilt must’ve loosened their grip on me.

Three years after Saagar’s death, I heard of ’Self-compassion’ for the very first time. My innate belief was that the only way to progress was to work hard, like the coachman whipping his horses to move forward. Finally, after having lost my marriage, my child and all pride in my professional achievements, I was learning.

Dissecting events from the past and looking at them under a microscope seemed pointless and silly. Still, I was doing it all the time. I had spent most of my life doing the things that I thought I had to do as opposed to the things that I wanted to. And it was never enough. There was always more that could be done. I was always inadequate.

When Saagar was six, I was working full time and studying for exams. When I returned from my Part 1 Fellowship exam, Saagar looked up from his toy helicopter and asked me, “Mamma, did you win?” I was unable to see this was a game, and I needed to enjoy it a little bit. In the middle of all the working and doing, I completely forgot to relax and look after me. I was unable to stop and reevaluate my priorities. This was normal. Everyone around me seemed to be in the same situation.

Through years of therapy, I learnt that I had been the unconscious creator of the jinn that kept me spinning, leaving little time to sit down, relax and have a heart-to-heart. I was invincible and so should everyone else be. Until now, the art of conversation was oblivious to me. I had never witnessed good listening, except in films. I listened to fix as that is what I was trained to do. Sitting around talking was not as credible as being busy, doing important things. That’s what I had seen and here I was, on repeat. But all these hours of sitting with the gift of my therapist’s listening had helped me turn to myself with empathy. Working through various threads of my life had loosened a tight knot. I was able to tease each thread apart and see it for what it was.

I learnt that I was my tyrant and my slave, pushed by the whip of time and pulled by the notion of success. Despite being determined to not become my ancestors, they were more present in me than I was.

Underneath that jumble, sat my grief, patiently waiting. As the thick oil-slick of self-ignorance thinned and washed away, I was able to grieve properly for the suffering and death of my child. A hundred tonnes fell off my shoulders and I bawled with relief – I was perhaps not entirely responsible. I was simply living by what I knew then.

I was worthy of my own kindness.

I deserved to be held gently by me.

In time, I might even forgive myself.

Possibly, even have compassion for me.

For all these years I had been trying my best to serve my patients and family from a punch bowl that had been empty. I couldn’t see this emptiness as I didn’t know what a full one looked like. In my home and work settings, self-sacrificing mothers and doctors were nobility. These ideals had seeped into me while I wasn’t looking. 

But now, thankfully, I could see that my bowl was empty.

I was going to polish it and replenish it gently.

If not now, when?

Gifts of the season.

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The blustery wind is uprooting age-old trees. It’s making such a racket, I can’t hear anything else. The gust is roaring and the rain is pouring at sharp angles. Everything is soaked. The air is so heavy with moisture that every bit of fabric in the house is saturated with it. Invisible dampness pervades the kitchen towels, curtains and tablecloths. That laundry has been trying to dry itself on a stand, standing in the middle of our living room for the last four days and nights but it’s nowhere near dry yet. The pages of my books are swelling up as they become more and more damp. The incessant rhythm of banana and palm leaves fanning outside the window and the dance of the silver oaks permeate the milkiness of the cloud inside which we live. The clanging tempo of huge rain drops hitting clay roof-tiles makes it feel like a proper rock concert.

The water has pushed its way into the house. The wind has driven it in through the frame of the west-facing window of our bedroom. A thin line is streaming down the wall, starting at the lower end of the wooden slat that supports the south-facing roof. Most days we wake up to the surprise of little puddles on the floor.

This is normal. Our little rented cottage is unable to keep the monsoon out. Most other houses are the same. It’s to be expected. It’s familiar now. It makes me smile. So far, we’ve spent two months of two monsoons here. Despite the above gifts of this season, a deeper silence and stillness remain present within me. They’re also becoming very familiar.

Next week we fly to Heathrow. Wow! People everywhere. Again. Wonder what that’ll be like. I hope to carry a little box of silence and stillness with me so I can open it and smell these pleasant fragrances at will.

For now, I need to find a way to dry the laundry. I could iron these clothes, but the power supply is unavailable. The sun will be on holiday for at least three more months. I think the only way to dry them is for me to wear them and let them dry on me before packing them up.