All he wanted to do was come through the door like the six of us did, walk freely. I’m a member of a hospice choir, and we just finished singing to a memory care facility. A delightful, seemingly normal looking older gentleman followed us out. We stopped him at the door and kindly stated we can go through, he cannot.
A simple interaction that held enormous triggers. The situation brought me back to a difficult time in the past when my grown daughter, living with a lifelong liver disease, became so despondent that she wanted to harm herself. One incident led to another that led to her being hospitalized in a psyche ward.
I was at the door saying goodbye and unable to allow her to leave. As I stepped through the door, I could hear her pleading and it knifed through my heart. This task was one of the hardest tasks I ever did, walk away from my daughter pleading with me to take her home.
She was an inpatient for a week. Though the first few days were tumultuous at best, the whole week was essential to her gaining a better perspective on her situation. She was in her mid-twenties and facing a fatal liver disease, and coming to grips with the idea that this is her life plan. I was her main support, and I didn’t want it either.
Sometimes in life we need to face really difficult situations that take courage, a courage we pull up from our toes, even though we believe with all our heart we can’t do it. We do it because we must.
Relying on strong supports in my life, I forged through this task and survived. I was left with me, remembering self-care, following daily routines and putting one foot in front of the other. I had other choices, like run away and turn my back on my family. Not a choice I wanted to make. I could sedate myself with drugs or alcohol or food. My food choices satisfied my emotions. Food was my substance abuse.
Now entering my 70’s, life is easier with a different kind of difficult. I am retired and have time to myself to engage in tasks I prefer to do. Often I tell people I am in preferment. My body has morphed through many changes. I was suffering from Stage three kidney disease, pre-diabetes and a terrible digestive disorder called Small Intestine Bacteria Overgrowth (SIBO) that caused unrelenting pain throughout my body both during the day and night. I also suffer from Fibromyalgia, another unrelenting pain syndrome.
I believe my abuse of food led to my health conditions. My years of emotional suffering with my chronically-ill daughter, my battered emotions from a dysfunctional alcoholic home, and a failed marriage was eased by an eating disorder I still struggle with to this day.
Through all the years I parented my children, I had an insatiable desire to explore spirit, the unseen world, to understand what it has to offer in a difficult and challenging life.
My paternal grandmother often talked of the occult and I found myself curious and weirded out. My relatives made fun of her, often degrading her beliefs in front of the whole family. My mother as well had a strong desire to explore spirit and shared her excitement with all of us as we all suffered through the alcoholic abuse afforded by my father. I believe every female member of my biological family was born with gifts of sensitivity.
After my second daughter was born with her liver disease, my life broke open, revealing not only my terror on the odds of my second daughter surviving past the age of five, but through therapy discovering the emotional and sexual abuse we all suffered within our biological family. Behind closed doors of the esteemed vice president of a prominent bank in Western Massachusetts, my father tyrannized his children because of his fear and addiction to alcohol.
Like a well worn path of exploring, I set about to help myself using spirit, research and medical professionals to help my survival. After my divorce, I had to provide for my two girls, start a new career and learn more and more about the unseen world.
Now 40 years later, I hold the well worn skin of a sailor navigating the rocky waters of a life at sea. My daughter survived until the age of 32 when her body no longer was able to sustain life. I fought for her the whole way. She learned to fight for herself along the way, and her willingness to fight allowed us to be closer up to the end.
I battled my food issues. Pain is a great motivator. Using advice from learned functional nutritionists and other medical professionals willing to look at the whole picture, I completely changed my gut biome while eliminating bad foods, replacing them with good foods. Now over three years of successful food choices, I am disease free. On occasion I still struggle with Fibromyalgia pain, but much more manageable.
Most of all, I am living my life with spirit, enjoying the feeling that I am not alone. The world of spirit joins me very day as I go about my tasks. I ask for advice, discuss my choices and feel the support. This world is meant to be lived in a dualistic way, accompanied by loved ones on the other side, assisting us as we navigate through daily living as a human. Our humanness is not all there is. Spirit accompanies us as we learn our lessons. We are spiritual beings in a human body.
My daughter is part of my spirit team. Other loved ones, ancestors along with guides, angels and other light beings make up my spirit team, and I’m still discovering.
One thing I have learned through my life is no one is alone. No one dies alone. If one feels life is hopeless and they are left alone to suffer, it is their mind that has erected the wall of separation. By changing one’s perspective, releasing the limiting core beliefs and messages we have adopted from our childhood, we can open up to a world of incredible support. All that’s needed is intention and a willingness to do so.
Photo credit: Raphael Biscaldi