Proud of my Mum..

Yesterday we went over to see my Mum in her new home, and I have been thinking about her all day - because she was just so magnificent!!

She is just starting to find a normality in her life after what has been a few weeks of the most turbulent change possible - the death of a husband of 66 years, a move from her house of 55 years, the loss of her mobility, because of the broken hip, which means she is still struggling to get around.

And yesterday when we left, she stood in the hallway, a little old lady standing on the threshold of a completely new life. Missing my father desperately but having such strength and determination that I felt like she glowed from inside, her blue eyes resonating such an amazing beauty.

..... and all she could say was 'I am just so lucky!' What a wonderful woman she is......

Waiting for Alex and Lara....

....I was just going to pick them up at the airport when I looked to see that their flight is delayed from Geneve - so I thought I'd do my blogg while I was waiting. It's Saturday evening and I have had a day catching up with myself - so I've shopped, cooked and cleaned - and am really looking forward to having Alex and Lara here for a week.

I also had Vanessa for lunch and a walk in the park - and made a Christmas pudding - my Mother always made several for all the family - so I offered to do it this year - you stir in all the ingredients together and leave them for 24 hours - before steaming the puddings - it does look a bit volcanic at the moment though - I also think it's too runny - but hey ho it's only a pudding!! We're going over to see my Mum tomorrow I'll ask if I need to thicken it a bit.

It's been good to be domestic today as I was feeling pretty bonkers last night - at the end of an exceptionally busy week - hosting a 2 day video conference with lots of people here as well as in Cairo, and then still lots to catch up with at work as I have got a bit behind, with being off around my Dad's death.  Strangely - even though it was really busy - the whole week left me full of energy - it was sort of crackling out of me last night - and I can still feel it now - my hands and feet tingling with energy... doesn't feel bad but does make me feel a bit light headed.

I was also awake quite a lot last night and I think that was linked to the energy in me - I just couldn't sleep - felt so very wide awake - nearly did my blogg but got firm with myself and made myself stay in bed - I should be really tired - not buzzing with energy!

Flights delayed another 15 minutes. Done my blogg - think I'll make a casserole before I pick them up - put some of this energy to use - crazy woman!!!!

Decisions....

... the awful night Chris died - I can so clearly remember being in the hospital with my sons - being asked to make huge life/death decisions - and saying 'What ever decision we make tonight must be one that we can look back on in 10 years time and know that we made the right decision'.

Tonight I understood that it not just the big life/death decisions that we need to be able to do this for - but we actually need to live with all our decisions - however small - and we need to be able to go back and look ourselves in the eye and to know - that at the time - we believed we made the right decision - for the right reasons....

.......who said any of this was easy!!!

Feeling restless.....

.... it's been such a busy few weeks - I feel like I'm coming down to earth in my own life again... linked to a restlessness which I'm not certain of the meaning of...

Work has been good - picking up the threads - aware that I have missed things over the last few weeks - loving some aspects... but not everything... restlessness present there as well...

It's Saturday morning and I am dossing in my bed - what a lovely feeling - eating cornflakes, drinking tea and writing my blogg..... but aware that behind this peacefulness is this sense of restlessness... funny how the blogg crystallises ideas in me - as when I started writing I didn't know that I am so restless - but now it has become a very strong feeling - and I'm really trying to think through what it means!

I suppose in one way I have time  - after the last couple of hectic months - I am on my own again - Rob's gone back to Croatia - and although I'm going to see my Mum tomorrow - the frenetic pattern of hospital visits and funeral arrangements etc have finished - so I have time to feel restless.

Should make the most of it - as a complicated Study Visit starts tomorrow and I will be rushing around for several days with that - but I love that sort of thing and thrive on it!

Had a lovely night last night - Deirdre and I - honouring and remembering, with love, our Dads -  we'd got dressed up to go out but in the end we didn't make it - we talked a lot about the way things conspire to happen at a certain time - like my Dad's death - extraordinary sense of things coming together in perfect synchrony.

So maybe this restless feeling is just a part of my preparation for the next things that are going to happen in my life - but the one thing I do know is - I have no idea what they will be .... and isn't that just so exciting!!!!!

Living in amazing times.................

... and we are - surrounded by this huge global maelstrom of changes.....

Yesterday I was given the analogy of us being poised on the edge of the biggest waterfall imaginable - where we can be frightened, prevaricating and procrastinating - waiting in indecision until we are dragged under with the tow of the water to be smashed by the rocks and the debris - or where we can just get on with it - getting on the nearest raft, without fear, accepting where we are  - and then to just love every second of this amazing ride..................... know which one I'm going for!!!!

Fearless - just love it - doing my best to live my life totally without fear and enjoying every second of the roller coaster!

OK where am I? At home Robbie still here - out with friends tonight - a joy to see my son happy - my Mum moved into her new home today - still landing - not quite settled but moving on - and finding pleasure - wonderful - Jim and Rob going to see her tomorrow.

Me - well I'm happy - recognising the huge changes - climbing on the raft - and doing my best to enjoy every second of the ride!

You know what.......

.....it's been a pretty tough week!

Back home after a conference in Brussels - very pleased I went - confirmed to me what I know which is good - message on my phone from Jenny saying she moving Mum on Tuesday to Abbeyfield with 6 week care package - so that's great - will go and see Mum tomorrow.

Feel a bit overwhelmed tonight - it's been a hard week! - I also had such a strong feeling of change/tranisition as I came back in taxi from Liverpool airport just now - I can see I'm moving on - just like my lovely Mum!

Way to go - accepting and embracing change - only way to do this..........

Rumi - says it all....................

After I had written my blogg - I meditated and next to my altar was a beautiful calender of Rumi poems that a dear friend had given me, and because I have been rushing around so much - it was still on August. So I turned it and this was the poem for September 2011..............

 

Your grief for
what you’ve lost
lifts a mirror up
to where you’re
bravely working.

Expecting the worst,
you look, and instead,
here’s the joyful face
you’ve been wanting
to see.

Your hand opens
and closes and
opens and closes.
If it were always a fist
or always stretched
open, you would be
paralyzed.

Your deepest
presence is in every
small contracting
and expanding,
the two as
beautifully balanced
and coordinated
as birdwings

Rumi

Thank you, with love and so much gratitude.

Joy and death.........

.........yesterday was my father's funeral - and it WAS FANTASTIC! It was a truly perfect day... and I wasn't the only one - saying/thinking this.... lots of people.... kept saying... what a perfect funeral, what an amazing life.... what an amazing man.... how lucky was he... how lucky were we to know him, be part of this family, to have your childhood.............. all perfect and wonderful things to say at a funeral....

And it was perfect..... and we did it so well as a family - my 91 year old mother coming from hospital, using a wheelchair and a zimmer frame but coping so well... dignified, strong and really, really focusing on every word in the two services ... and she was just so beautiful.... trying so hard to do it right - and doing it so, so well.... Mum I was just so proud of you - and everyone felt the same - truly inspirational.......

All my sisters speaking at the Chapel -  not finding it easy - but standing up and saying just the right things - things which needed to be said.... and Evey and Becki - I was honoured to stand up with them - and so proud - of all us - my Mum, sisters, grandchildren, cousins, family friends - we just did it so well!!

OK - may be it's a bit weird to be quite so euphoric over a funeral - but it was just amazing - I also know that it was a very healing experience for so many of us... griefs which go back lifetimes, my father's death being a trigger - an opportunity for us to recognise our own grief - and to accept - to be grateful for so much - to feel the joy of being alive.....

Don't think I'm expressing this very well - because my overwhelming feeling is - and has been throughout this special time of my Father's death... an overwhelming feeling of deep joy......

We live in a world where the words 'joy and death' don't usually go hand and hand - however - my Dad's age and life has made this possible....  maybe that's why it has been such a healing experience for so many of us... because he was so old - and had had such a great life - we were enabled not to be wrapped up in 'sadness' about a loved one physically leaving us - and as a consequence we could really focus on our own 'grief' - which is such a personal thing - the legacy of lifetimes of hurts.......

Wow to recognise the 'griefs' within ourselves -  now that is truly healing - to recognise, to accept them and then to let them go............ letting go - nothing to do with saying good-bye to my Dad for one last time - but all to do with letting go those stored angers/pains/wounds which we keep from our childhood and before...... griefs which we inherit - handed down through generations.....

Special days indeed..........

It's now Tuesday evening and I will go back to work tomorrow - Alex going back to France, Robbie being around - here and London for a few more days - me - going to Brussels for a conference - Thursday/Friday - visiting Congeleton Memorial hospital - hopefully for the last time on Saturday - Mum set to move to Abbeyfield next week - lots of people for dinner on Sunday...

......so living my life - being so very grateful for being alive - recognising the joy of life, and the joy that my Father's death has given me and especially the beautiful healing that I have been privileged to witness........... but also recognising that people I love are in pain - feeling that grief and giving them love.........

Whirlwind.............

..........feel like I'm living in a whirlwind - but also strangely happy to be doing so!

It's become very autumnal and after last week's unusual sunshine - wild winds whirl leaves around in the air - way above ground level - swirling, whirling leaves... all separate yet all just tiny parts of the huge whirling movement of leaves.

Last Sunday  - I danced with leaves - 'Dancing Deep' in Manchester - Alex the teacher enabled us to dance with leaves - in our own unique way - and it was wonderful..... one of the clear 'thoughts' that I have kept all week is about the individual leaf - in the swirling whirling dance of all the leaves...

Through the dance I 'looked at/saw' some of the leaves really clearly - spending time - focusing my attention on those few leaves - as they were there within my consciousness/field of vision/hand.... and I was so very aware that these few individual leaves were just so very, very beautiful - each one having so many colours - hues from green to deep red, and being patterned and veined with perfection, each leaf beautiful, special, unique.............. and each of these individual leaves could also be seen as just part of a pile of leaves - something brown in heap on the floor - it was only when you looked at each one, with focus and real attention -  that you saw how beautiful each one uniquely was.....

I think that's what I feel like at the moment - part of the swirling, whirling mass of stuff - humanity - but if you look at me closely - like everyone of us - I am a beautiful individual - with my own colours, shades and hues, my own patterning and veining.... very special and very unique - like everyone else - truly amazingly beautiful - but together we can just look like a pile of nothing special.

The chaos and change we are living can also be seen as the whirling and swirling going on around us - I have had the wonderful opportunity over the last few days to stop and to look around me - and to see the beauty of those awesome treasures that are close by!!!

So what does that all mean - I am at home - 3 sons in the same country - though here and there - really enjoying their presence in my life... being together, talking, eating, sharing stuff - just wonderful to have them close by - I am so in love with my sons - they all three so different and just so wonderful!!!!

Tomorrow - over to my parents house - probably for the last time I will ever stay there - bufff!!!! - the  house of my childhood - then the funeral on Monday - wanting to get it right - know what I want to say - hope I can do it well - details - details - all the important things! My Mum close to my heart, the grief of my sisters..... but also taking time to acknowledge my own vulnerability and humanity.....

So many leaves swirling around me - but joyful, happy and doing my best to consciously recognise their - and my own - individual uniqueness and beauty.......................

massive changes....

.... am surprised at the depth of change that I feel happening in my life.... my Father was very old, it was not unexpected that he died – all be it that he was doing OK until only a bit over a month ago.... I have known for several years that he was getting very tired (of living)... I do not feel sad that he is no longer struggling to live... I am still in awe at the beauty of his death... but I am feeling something enormous happening.....

I have talked to many people over the last few days and a lovely dancer said to me on Sunday - that so many people she knew were going through big changes in their lives.... and that feels right.... we are all going through a massive change – in one way or another...

‘Enjoy life as a flow of change, chaos and beauty’ I have this in Spanish on the wall of my office – and I noticed it yesterday and it resonated with every cell in my body.... I think it’s 5 Rhythms... but it is just so right....

So it is the middle of the night – I’m not sleeping – drinking cocoa in attempt to get some sleep – wide awake but not unhappy – feeling the world and life changing around me – big swirling changes – but understanding that I must ‘go with the flow’ – give myself up to it totally and just recognise the beauty in the chaos!