I was inspired to write this article hoping it will help someone who is going through pain or tragedy. This is not the only answer but this is what helped me.
About 40 years ago my aunt passed away she was so dear to me like a mother, a friend, and a play-mate. She was every thing to me. She had cancer. It was very hard for me to get someone to take me to the hospital to see her. So I got out and walked. The hospital was about five miles from where we stayed. Five miles to see my aunt was like five minutes.
Finally she got out of the hospital. Having my own family and married at the time. I would go bath her and just a touch to her body was so in-bearable because of the cancer. She was beating the odds for about two months and she passed away. I grieved for five years, I could have saved myself some pain if only I had known what I know now. There was no one that I could go to talk about it. Because every body else was having problems to and didn't really understand.
Some years later I lost my new born baby boy, well he lived for about two weeks. I was living in Alabama at the time, they transported him by life flight to Florida. I was still in the hospital as the usual custom for a woman to stay in the hospital three days after giving birth. When I got out of the hospital I would call every day to see how my baby was getting alone. Each time I called it would be a resounding good.
One day I got a call saying to come to the hospital, they didn't say the baby was ill or any thing. They just told me to come to the hospital. So my mom got this guy named Sam to take us there. I was so happy thinking that maybe I was going to bring the baby home. When we got there I went to the information desk and I ask the clerk what room was my baby was in. I gave her the information. She told me he was on the floor where they kept the dead bodies for family to visit. I can't think of the name she said, but I knew then that it was something wrong. So when we went there in this room we met the doctor and he showed us where my baby was at. I went there and held him his body was still warm and stiff. The doctor said he passed away about 30 minutes ago. I cried like it wasn't no tomorrow, well for my baby it wasn't.
In 2001 my husband and I took a trip to Germany. About four days into the first week of being there I got a call saying my father had past. So we made the necessary arrangement to leave out so I could be there for the funeral. The trip was for two weeks, we had to cut it short.
But the most interesting thing to me was I had bought a bottle of Cologne for Father's Day to mail to my father. But I rode around for three years with that cologne on the back seat of my car, never did mail it. I don't know the real reason why I didn't mail it to him, but I hold no regrets. Because as a little girl I would always give my father on his birthday or Father's Day. I would find money and save it to buy him a gift each year. He never did do any thing for me, oh I remember he bought me a $0.99 dress and one Christmas he bought my children something and yes he gave me $25.00 once and he did that just to be seen.
My father was a Fisherman at Omega Protein (Zapata) Mississippi where he worked for many years until he retired in 1999. So there was no reason to not have contributed financially to my up bringing. he was well known where ever he went. I must admit he was a well dressed and handsome man but he didn't take care what was important "me." I was younger and now I am older God didn't let me go without food or bread or the necessitates in life.
No matter what I always love my daddy. Even he dis-owned me I still kept trying to reach out to him until the day he died. I had a cousin that was like a sister to me that passed away. Basically those was my family. Outside of my dad those people were my family.
From my experience pain is not based on the circumstances we face in life. But how we view the circumstances we face in life. Our problems and tragedy's we expedience just drilling over and over not realizing you don't have to add misery. One of the ways I learned to overcome hurtful feeling was not to look at it as hurt or view it as punishment or other unforeseen predicaments but as part of life. Instead of whining over my circumstances I use them to grow and develop. Had I not I wouldn't be able to tell you this day what I have experienced. I know now I didn't have to hurt. I know now how to hurt less. I have been told for many years that it was okay to hurt and grieve. That from this I would get relief, I was also told that time heal all wounds. But I have come to the conclusion I don't have to hurt, I don't have to wait on time to heal. The real answer is for me to choose how I respond to hurt and pain.
Some people might look at divorce as devastation and can't move beyond that. But other may use it as a stepping stone as a time to grow and move beyond the pain. I choose the latter because I look at my circumstances as a millstone to grow and move beyond the hurt. This is where I found my healing. So can you!
I hope you will be enriched and enlighten as your have read this articles. You don't have to suffer through your pain but grow and develop. Please feel free to leave your comments.
