Monday 5 May 2014

Letter #5




Dear Criss,

Well how are you? I have been noticing that you have had a few little hiccups this past week.  You pushed yourself didn't you? You put others ahead of you and what happened? UUhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

Lack of sleep, and worry, and stress are silent killers honey bun. They are NOT good for you. Now you are run down, and a bit grumpy......and eating chocolate. (Dark 75% is still chocolate!)

So you bent yourself out of shape and went out of your way to PLEASE people. At work you agreed to more heavy work, more than you can handle....now you are in pain, and worrying about your back. I know you will will speak up soon, but why wait? 

Your gift is the ability to laugh at yourself, and with others. You care so much that you think that it can heal anything... Maybe it can?


I know you are a strong woman. Stronger than most, stronger than you think. You have had to be. You have had to learn to love you when no one else would.


What did that teach you?


When you care and love yourself, you attract love and good things into your world. YES?


Remember the days as a kid when you had to be both mother and daughter?
Remember when at 12 years of age, your dad accidentally fell down the back steps of a friends house and broke his neck. You prayed so hard that he'd get better, but he died within hours. Your world changed in an instant.
Your mother disappeared. She was so lost in her own grief she had no room to comfort you or any of your siblings. You were alone. With your brother going off the rails, and deciding that now is the best time to start doing heavy drugs and drinking....punching in walls, and occasionally your mother if she got in the way. You stopped him that night...he was about to hit your mother and you stepped in front and yelled at him ENOUGH....he did throw you into another room, but he stopped after that. Maybe seeing his baby sister flying through the air was enough to make him see he maybe had gone too far? Or maybe it was seeing her get up, crying, but defiant and standing in front of her mother...still ready to protect all she had left. That took balls girl.... 

I know you have blocked this from your mind.....but there is a reason I am reminding you of these things....


I want you to remember that 12 year old girl. That little girl starting her first year of high school 2 weeks after her fathers death, and she is moving her body, waking up, eating, and living on the outside, when she is scared as hell and dying inside.....


Your mother gave up. She just stopped wanting to live. You understand that now. Now that you have love, and a husband that is everything to you....but at 12 that was harder to understand. You thought she was going to die and leave you too. 

So you took care of her. You fed her....cleaned for her....helped her before and after school. You slept with her so she wouldn't be lonely. When she woke up crying you held her. It took a year , and thankfully she came back....each month that went by she got better.


Now fast forward.....

Your baby girl is 10 weeks old, and you are suffering silently from Post Natal Depression. When she 6 weeks old, your husband, your world, suffered a virus. This virus attacked his eyes. He beautiful artistic eyes....in under 24 hours he lost 85% of his vision....and you lost your husband.

What followed was weeks and months of dealing with a new born baby and a depressed suicidal husband. Baby took a back seat, and was left not very willingly with your mother. The same mother who mocked your mothering skills and shot down anything good with self esteem shattering support. 

Hubby got help, and drugs to stop the virus dead, but it left him with a few issues, one being double vision. Glasses help correct it, but he still has a ghosting shadow, but he is use to it now, and one would never know. He get headaches though.

But the months that followed where hard. The hardest you have ever had....and you have had hard. He was sad, he lost his job, he couldn't drive, he couldn't paint, he just hated his life. In 12 months he lost both his parents, became a father, and went essentially blind.

No one could see that you were just holding on. Not coping  at all. Silently moving through, masking your pain, and giving all of yourself to everyone....babies don't understand someone's having a bad day....and your little one had her own issues of colic and screaming for hours.....

Do you remember that dark dark horrible day. That day when you felt so sick, so worn out, so invisible, so utterly useless, you just couldn't take any more....

You were driving home....alone.....you had been to the doctor's for pain in your breasts, but the family GP only wanted to talk about hubby. He was, as we all were very concerned about his mental health. That was the last straw... as you drove down that familiar road, you let your foot become heavy on the pedal..... for a few seconds you felt alive....free almost....you knew that if you kept accelerating you would loose control, and around the next bend you wouldn't be able to stop, and you would hit the light post at high speed and die. It actually felt lovely. No more crying babies, horrible mocking mothers, or depressed husbands who didn't love you any more or want anything to do with his child.

It felt like hours, but it only was a few seconds. You went from happy to end it all and be free, to NO FUCKING WAY AM I LEAVING MY BABY with those two! You slowed down and pulled over and cried. All the tears you held inside just came pouring out like an uncontrollable flood.

Why am I reminding you of all this?

Because I want you to remember just how STRONG you are.

You are a STRONG LOVING WOMAN. So giving of you, so full of LOVE. 

I want to thank you for LIVING. So many lives would have turned out so differently had you not....including yours. 

You took back control. You became the mother you knew you could be.... you took back your baby out of your mothers hands and she stopped being so upset. (Nonna feeding a 4 week old solids was probably the main cause of all the colic!) 

You loved your husband more.....you never gave up on him....you taught him to love your baby. He started to smile, and your baby started to laugh, and you both started to laugh again too and little moments of peace, grew into bigger ones. You encouraged him to look at life differently. With time his eyes started healing and he regained his sight. Just double vision to deal with, but better than total blindness. A blessing really. Not many regain their sight.

The three of you bonded like glue. Stronger, more loving than before. All could have been lost had you driven that car into that post. 

He would have died without you....your child would have grown up in the hands of your mother............like you...........she would have been abused....

YOU WERE STRONG ENOUGH FOR ALL OF YOU.

Now that baby is almost 20, and 2 more babies are in this world because you never gave up. 

Tonight you laughed at your husbands antics...he loves you so much. He loves you because you taught him how to love when there is nothing else. He would be a mess without you...you are his rock, as he is yours. LOVE is a powerful drug my dear.


Life is like a roller coaster.....you can either be shit scared all through the ride, or you can hang on and scream and feel that wind in your hair, and your heart beating wildly and enjoy the ride. It is going to go up and down, and back up.....with it life lessons will be thrown your way.............


NEVER GIVE UP...............LOVE.................LAUGH...............LIVE..........


for tomorrow is a new day....................






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