The garden

Posted by kidsaregifts20

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)

Don’t feed them.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Not your problem. No one else does. They’re a nuisance.

Our neighbourhood has a matriarch of a female-dog, Heaps, who in the last 18 months has produced two generations. When we returned from our monsoon break last year, her son, whom we lovingly called Livingston (due to his seagull ears), had disappeared. Her daughter, Lilly (as in silly, she eats very slowly which is silly given the other dogs steal her food) had Poppy (from Puppy) who then went on to produce five, all of which the local temple took for adoption. Lilly also had Bear and Patch who we managed to re-home with a local family. Heaps then had another four, of whom one disappeared and two starved to death in front of our eyes. The one that survived looks like a Teddy. So, that’s his name. Against popular advice we feed them when everyone has gone to bed. Bad!

A State highway nearby is a regular haunt for these dog families.

We approached the village administration about sterilisation, and they said it was the Town Hall’s responsibility. We went to the Town Hall, and they insisted it was the village administration’s problem.

In view of multiple road traffic accidents caused by dogs, the Supreme Court of India, on 7^th November 2025, “imposed a clear and mandatory obligation upon the jurisdictional municipal bodies/authorities to forthwith remove all the stray dogs found within the precincts of such identified institutional areas and to relocate the same to designated shelters, after ensuring due sterilisation and vaccination in accordance with the applicable statutory framework.”

The actions to be completed within a period of eight weeks from that day were –

to establish a mechanism for removal and sheltering of stray animals from highways;

the constitution and functioning of patrol teams; and

the operational status of helpline facilities and installation of sign boards displaying helpline numbers.

There is no helpline. No staff. No designated shelters. No implementation.

We leave for the monsoon again in a few weeks.

Wonder who’ll be here when we return.

Connection of Care

Posted by kidsaregifts20

What did I miss most when I retired from being a doctor?

Patients.

The dignity with which they put up with so much angst and uncertainty constantly inspired me. They smiled. They tried to be gentle, often through pain. I felt a deep connection of care with them. When I stopped working, I missed my patients most.

Over the last 15 months, I have been studying the principles of Hypnotherapy and learning the skills of Solution Focused Brief Hypnotherapy. Anaesthesia is to Medicine what Hypnosis is to therapy. The parallels are clear to me. The course was enjoyable and insightful, and the practice is deeply satisfying. I can now work online with my clients from this remote little village where we live. Once again, I have that caring connection with people.

The fundamental physiological principle on which Hypnotherapy is based is that of Neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain at any age to grow and morph in response to repeated use of certain neural tracks. Cells that fire together, wire together, states Hebb’s law. This essentially means that the repeated use of certain pathways strengthens them and disuse of others, weakens them.

The belief at the root of this practice is that all the resources we need are already present within us. The art is to have access to them, to be self-aware and make decisions from a place of strength, not fear.

Insomnia, weight loss, depression and anxiety, stopping smoking, grief, getting over a phobia, relationship issues and stress are the most common presenting complaints. I am fascinated with the process as I see people identify small steps for themselves that add up over time to produce the big changes they want in their lives. One or two bonus ones as well.

One of my clients was mainly concerned about her weight. She didn’t like her photos and hated shopping for clothes. Otherwise, her life was good. She shared it with her husband of 28 years. After 6 weeks in therapy, she started to comment on her relationship with her husband, which seemed to be improving. She was responding differently to the things he said and did. That really helped. By Week 8, she was enthralled by how famously the two of them were getting on. At our 10^th and last meeting, the weight wasn’t even mentioned. She had taken charge of her life.

“I think I have been more positive since we started. More considered, certainly. My responses have become calmer. This has helped many of my interactions, especially with Mike. There are people who trigger me, however, that I still find it difficult to respond in a calm way (my mother). My activity levels have been steady. I rate my confidence as being a bit improved. I am trying to value myself more and my body. I am still a very organised person, but I suppose I am ‘letting things happen’ a bit more. I find that the small improvement in my levels of confidence and interactions have made a difference. My reactions and responses help me.

As far as happiness is concerned, I often rate how I feel and think about what little thing I could do to improve how I feel. In general, the sessions have helped me view how I act and interact with others. I can ‘hear’ your voice calmly in the background when I take time to consider how I feel. I am also good at scoring myself.

There have been some difficult moments recently (regarding my mother), and I have managed to step back for a few days and recharge.”

I feel fortunate to have found this new line of work that is essentially a series of creative conversations.

Resource: An international School for training to be a Hypnotherapist: https://inspiraology.com/

Rreeeeee

Posted by kidsaregifts20

You must not call your husband by his name. Never. It is disrespectful.

(He is your master after all.)

Sunte ho? (Are you listening, In Hindi.)

Sonu ke Papa? (Sonu’s father)

E’ ji. (Here, Sir)

Rreeeeee (Something to the same effect, in Kannada)

These are examples of substitute names by which a wife may address her husband bypassing speaking his name.

Minoo was nineteen when she married someone, she had met only once. The handsome man in the photograph that she was allowed to gaze at, was now her husband. Meeting before marriage was not allowed. It was not considered necessary. In 1964, some thought it positively immoral.

Once married, she went to live in the house of her in-laws. The same rule applied. Except here, it was the law. She was prohibited from uttering his name. That was a problem.

She could have shortened Purushottam to Uttam, but his friends had already done that. So, that abridged name was taken by his equals. She had to find another way.

She had always liked the sound of the word, Sameer, which meant, sea-breeze.

“Can I call you Sameer? It’s not your name but will surely make life easy.” She asked him.

“Sure. I don’t mind.” said he.

That was that. Her mother-in-law could not object as Minoo called out to her husband by a strange new name that she had not heard before. Problem solved.

Over the years, Minoo became proficient at finding inventive solutions to many unforeseen problems, be it lengthening my frock or fixing a half-baked cake when the electricity went off partway through. She is my mother and although my father died three and a half years ago, she still thinks of him and loves him as her Sameer.

Like cloud joining cloud.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Loss Too Deep for Words

When all that seems real is lost,
where words blur and fail,
where intention cannot reach the depth,
where heart hungers
and soul starves.

Only the warmth in the heart of another
finds the pulse,
like cloud joining cloud,
a delicate meeting
before language.

Seeing and seen,
no grandeur, no pretence.

Not words.
Not healing.
Not intention.

Not reviving.
Not demanding.
Not offering.
Not outside, just there, stepped inside.
Rare.

Once isolated, unreachable,
now golden sun emerging, real.

Only that which is real
can touch that which is real.

Nothing survives
that is not love.

By Tony Bisson

(Tony is a bereaved father. He wrote this poem expressing what being in the Circle of Rememberance means to him.)