Tag Archives: family

Loving in Isolation

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I’ve been reflecting this morning on the strange time is and wonder whether I, along with others of us, can be bold enough talk to about the things that are truly important.

Maybe time is giving us the opportunity to connect with our loved ones afresh in honesty, humility, thankfulness and encouragement.  We don’t know what tomorrow will bring which is why I feel it’s so important to communicate.   We have time to find a way to express how we feel about each one. 

Perhaps we can be brave and offer apologies, ask forgiveness, allow some restoration.  I was thinking of different ways to communicate: speak, record, write, draw, in any way we find most helpful, about how we love and appreciate each other. I know I want to leave a legacy of applause for my loved ones.

Perhaps we could think about a favourite piece of music, poem, hymn, something from the bible, something not from the bible, that would bring us comfort and then tell family.  Should hospitalisation then occur and complete isolation happen, they can arrange for these things to be recorded and sent to us, along with their voices perhaps reading some of it, bringing them close once again.

I wonder whether this is an opportunity to be at our most loving and our best selves.

(Pic: me and my mum Mary the year she died 2008)

 

 

 

Real Life

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A long time ago when I was working as an actress my husband and my two children (aged three and six or thereabouts) visited me at the rehearsal room.  The play was challenging, and another actor was playing my husband.  The actor’s comment after they left was “you have a real life don’t you?”  He had been surprised to meet my family because once in rehearsal, the group of actors became my family.  He was my husband and together we had to act a tenderness even though by the end of the play we had broken apart from each other. 
It was a comment that lived with me.  The father of a friend of mine who works in the movie industry now discovers the work has stopped and he is completely unprepared for the real life he must now live.  He has worked hard all his career, been successful, but today is hyper-anxious and finds himself isolated and lonely. Since writing the book Time to Live looking at dying and death, I recognised my final wishes would not be that I spent more time at my place of work, or even my writing. Rather, I would want to see the beloved faces of my children, my husband, grandchildren, and friends. Recognising that brings a great perspective to the everyday choices of living life.
My relationships gained greater focus.  These are a few things I have taken on board in my attempt to sustain and enhance my connections with my adult children.
  • Be Accommodating – often when you least feel like it somebody wants something
  • Non-judgemental – with my grown-up children the requirement is that I say nothing. As a mother I was always teaching, now I am required to zip my mouth
  • Listening – being available, often at a difficult time. The rewards are great.
  • Trustworthy – don’t undermine their wishes. For example implementing whatever regime they as parents want to sustain with their children.
  • Allowing an adult to adult relationship to blossom – which means accepting and respecting the person they have become and are becoming.
  • Love whom they love – no question or debate about this. Learn, change, but love their partners whatever. Be family, love and accept each other.
  • Commitment to relationship– this means the things important to me at times can and must wait.
  • Caring for myself in all of this and making sound decisions. However I would rather be a ‘yes’ person overall so my ‘no’ is rare.