A difficult day yesterday - and not feeling much like a relaxed family holiday - some you win...
Dogs needed company and I needed dog company. Our grief and at some level relief at Jessie's death was palpable. Four dogs on the bed while I read a novel and drank lots of tea - seemed about right. They slept and needed lots of love - so did I. I spent the day, when I wasn't examining the inside of my eyelids also watching and checking out pack dynamics. I still think it will be brilliant if Dido, our Golden Retriever, can hold command but she may feel at this time in her life it just isn't worth the hassle! She's loving the special privileges that go with leadership though! Having said that, with Jessie's death the pack are for the most part similar ages with the exception of Mungo who is just 4 - so another leader may yet emerge and claim the crown. My prayer is that it is not Mungo who is highly intelligent, funny and completely lovable but impulsive and excitable. So far his only bid has been to sleep with his head touching me.
Dogs are still 'confined' to quarters but we will see if some sort of gentle reintergration can be countenanced today - possibly after the Dolphin Cruise. We need to be guided by my step-granddaughter's stress levels. I don't feel worried about the dogs - they are dogs - but it just feels odd not having them about as I move round the house. I miss two dogs under my desk as I write.
The family holiday won't last for ever so even if they remain confined they will survive!!! Just such a shame that a precious and rare trip and gathering of some of my partner's clan should be marred by such awful events. My mum has been ill too - and our son.
And yes, depression is still my companion - but my mood could be a lot worse!
In a sense these incidents have the potential to be great healers or simply to act as reinforcers of past experience. Whichever they have enormous power.
I am reminded of the wisdom Jesus showed when those who had chosen to follow his teaching were bickering about their relative importance amongst themselves. He set boundaries; listened and was unimpressed by posturing. His message was always clear and unequivocal - whatever your pain through experience and past hurt, the call is to return once more and claim life - life in it's uniqueness and richness. Always the process of healing involves forgiveness or letting go. Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting but it does mean acknowledging that life and our experience is always imperfect and is actually nobody's fault - not even our own. I guess forgiveness rests on an understanding that at a base level other human beings are essentially good and are not out to be hurtful, manipulate or to be destructive of others just for the hell of it. Clearly many cannot accept forgiveness is ever possible. It must eat away at any sense of joy or possible delight in life. For most of us forgiveness is so challenging a concept because in our most reflective moments, we recognise that the hardest thing of all is to forgive ourselves; our moments when we have manipulated reality to gain credibility with others; the moments we have fallen short in our compassion; the moments fear of what we may lose has clouded our generosity of spirit.
Maybe Jesus wasn't so daft when he gave a reasonably wide berth to his birth family once he moved into the intensive emotionally and intellectually demanding period of his earthly ministry. Cultural convention would have encouraged a young man to be seen to 'stand on his own two feet' but there is also a spiritual reality and authenticity to Jesus' choices. He acted with emotional awareness but detachment. The road to salvation in a literal and metaphorical sense does not lie, he argued, in colluding or denying reality. The wisdom of new life, he teaches us, is found in becoming not only more fully our selves but in acknowledging our responsibility for our own decisions and journey. We have choices to make. We can choose to be a victim or a hero. We can delight in generously sharing our gifts and talents or shutting others out and denying their generosity and humanity. We can build up our treasure in possessions thinking somehow we will feel better - and find that actually they simply highlight the emptiness. We can deny our needs and pretend - but ultimately the only person we kid is ourselves.
Or we can choose to move on and quite literally - get a life.
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