This has been a tough week. I’m trying to make the most of hard days without depending on anyone to recognize how hard I’m trying to hold it together. If I want to have a birthday celebration, I have to make it happen, no one else will, and that’s ok.
I grew up knowing my stepmom lost two kids, it might actually be three, I feel bad I don’t know for sure. From the time I was 12 until I was 27, when I lost my own son, I didn’t know any of her kid’s birthdays or anniversaries. These days went by for her, and she probably felt very sad, but I didn’t know. Sometimes she talked about her kids with me, I felt bad for her, but I didn’t know what to do.
So how can I expect grand gestures of sympathy when no one knows what to do? The only time I realized how she must have felt, is when I had to go through it too, and through me, she experienced that pain for a fifth time with the loss of her 2nd grandchild. I certainly don’t want anyone I know to loose a child, so I can only fix myself from the inside, in my own way. I’m the only one who knows what helps because trying to describe it is next to impossible.
I choose happiness, and at times when I’m feeling particularly sad, I ask myself why, and it’s usually because I feel like no one cares that I’m so sad. Then I asked myself, do I really need recognition from others to stop being sad? If that’s the case I’m never going to turn this corner because no one knows what to do, and God bless them, when they try it’s a nice gesture, but always a little off target.
With the dark days of summer behind me until next year, I have learned to plan these days and not to dread them. I have proven to myself that I can take the hardest of days and turn them into a favorite memory simply by knowing myself and what will help. I can only depend on others to accept my process, I have that, it’s up to me to follow through on my own happiness.
Pool of Life. 