Time To Let Go

I can comfortably write about this topic now after so many years have passed me by. It was the summer of 1980 when this happened and it is now 2021 (41 years have gone by) I really did not believe that I have not been able to open up earlier than this, or maybe it was that I have just not been mentally equipped until this moment in time actually arrived to deeply think about. It was so very long ago. I am 51 now, and after working within the field of mental health nursing and having to leave this career after 30+ years after contracting Covid-19 in 2020, and recognizing how lucky I had been to recover after requiring hospital care & Oxygen therapy - being able to safely come home alive to my loving wife has suddenly switch on a 'light' within my heart.

Mindfulness - and how it has helped

As with readers of any of my other published articles, they will hopefully get the idea that I spend time with mindful behaviors to help support me through difficult and/stressful and frustrating times in my life and will see that once they can practice this technique, that they too will discover the real benefits of this tool, within use in their daily lives. This technique has been routed deep within its various forms & practices from early Buddhism. This is not the time to develop this article more in-depth, although suffice to say that, within the 1970’s it had been further developed & incorporated into Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) by Dr. Marsha Linehan. Dr. Linehan had personal experience with mental illness from within her own past. DBT became the first psychotherapy treatment to formally incorporate mindfulness - DBT was purposely created to provide support & treatment for those that found intense emotions both extremely emotional & painful and hard to cope with. Please for more ideas & tips on this, from an article I wrote earlier, you will find this by clicking the following link:

As I began with the date above, it was late June 1980 when the distressing emotion hit our home and everyone in it. I awoke naturally that Monday morning without the usual groans & mumblings made by myself because every early weekday morning my mum or dad would wake me up with a glass of fresh orange juice (both my parents knew that I loved this, and this was an effective way of getting awake and out of bed!) I recalled almost straight away that last night I had moaned and complained about having been told that it was time to go upstairs to go to bed. I recalled that my dad had told me after my mum had not gotten anywhere with me, telling me to go upstairs too - I had given my mum a kiss but I had just kissed my dad's balding space on his head and refused to say 'a single word' to him - I always said goodnight to him but not that night though.

But I looked at my digital and saw that it was past 11 o'clock! I simply grinned and thought to myself 'I can see my rabbit, and play all day,' (you know, the sorts of things you did when you were just a child and only 10!)

My sister who was older than me then came into my room saying,

"Oh, good morning sleepy head you are finally awake."

I looked up at her responding with,

"Am I not going to school today?"

Eagerly awaiting her to tell me that my school had been blown up or something, anything, that would mean that I did not have to go today. She just replied,

"Yeah, just have today off, mum is tired so leave her be in her bedroom."

My sister walked off but did not offer anything more on the subject and I just shrugged it off, grinning g from 'cheek to cheek'. Well as a boy of 10 years old, I gladly jumped out of bed, which I only ever did when it was NOT a school day; otherwise, it was moans, groans, and dragging my feet time - simply because I hated 1) getting out of bed & 2) even worse, going to school. I was not capable of recognizing sadness or dried tears in the face of a member of my family. Or wonder the fact as to why her makeup was blotchy (I should have guessed something was not quite right because neither of my sisters went a day without makeup!) Well, how many 10-year-old boys notice things like that? So, as I said, with a typical ten-year-old innocence, I ran out into our back garden to play with my rabbit - I had called him 'Greyling' (simply because when he was bought with my parents) he was 'grey' & a 'thing' so I just put the two together - yes, I know, very typical innocent childhood logic!

I have no idea just how long it had been that I had been out there, just that I had not noticed I was not chatting much - as I usually chatted to my rabbit as if it was a human being! This image of this rabbit is much like what 'Greyling' used to look like.

... Simply stroking. Simply stroking over & over. I did not understand why but it simply provided warmth & calmness to me.

Maybe if I had been as old as I am today then I might have understood the emotions & psychology that the action was stimulating the feeling of belonging within me somewhere.

Like I said,

I have no idea just how long I had been there. And then a voice from the open back garden door quietly stepped in beside me, coming round to the rabbit hutch, so that I could see him, and his sudden appearance would not make me jump with fright - as a young child, I had always been too easy to make me jump out of my skin (so to speak.)

A very close friend of our family had come to our home but why was it now coming up to midday, I knew he worked away. As a roman catholic family, we had become very close - and going to church on Sundays, going to midnight mass at Christmas time, days out as two families. He spoke very calmly with his voice which I found strange to me - he usually had an extremely fast, heavy regional Irish accent, that I found hard to understand and keep up with at the best of times! Our religion held a strong belief with us that friends and family stayed strong, close & supportive together throughout the challenges that life offloaded throughout.

The Emotional punch came, and he had not even spoken to me yet. He did not even speak, just smiled in a kind way, and placed his arms on both shoulders gently. I suddenly thought that something was very emotionally sad and wrong, and I started to cry. He still did not speak but just let me cry uncontrollably until:

"Daddy's dead isn't he."

It was not even a question from me, it had a complete absence of any display of emotion, just a sense I had formulated within my young mind, but not being woken to have breakfast, get ready, and be driven to school by my mum, my friend's visit, it all suddenly seemed to bring this all thought at the same time. I then started thinking - a bit like putting the final piece into the jigsaw.

Finally. he spoke. His eyes felt like they were staring right into my very heart itself.

And then came the dreaded admission, confirming my own deep-rooted fears as a child,

"I cannot think how to say this, so I am just going to say it, yes... your dad died earlier this morning."

So that was the confirmation. I did not go to see my dad at the Chapel of Rest because I became a mess. My mum thought that it would be even worse for me. But I went to his funeral, clutching onto my mum's hand throughout. It has brought out a lot of feelings within me when writing this but, at the same time, I am now able to accept this - I trained as a mental health nurse in 1989, in an attempt to help me begin to understand this tragic moment in my life at such a tender life - you see my dad committed suicide. I do not ever believe that my family really healthily recovered from this event; no one talks about this ever. Admittedly it is very hard to ever understand, suicide within any family - no one talks to each other.

My training in mental health taught me a lot about the phases of grief even today all these years later in 2021. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) put together the 5 stages of grief, in her book (published in 1969) called 'On Death and Dying,' where she theorized on these 5 stages below:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

It is important to bear these stages of the grief cycle in mind because they do not have to be experienced in order by anyone. Everyone is an individual and will go through each phase in any order, indeed some of the phases may not be experienced. Each phase can also be gone through over a short space of time, or for as long as is needed for the person. It is important to 'keep talking' to express just how you are feeling. I do not believe that the rest of my family has even progressed from the 'anger' phase as yet and they do not even want to talk over it.

Time can be a healthy healer for every one of us at any point in our lives.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please read and click the heart after reading. Anyone choosing to tip me, well, thank you so much for your generosity and kindness shown by this - hearts are great but tips help me succeed and do better but remember they are not obligatory.

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