Shattering into Pieces
Be the light is my motto, my anthem and my guiding thought. I use it to push me through hard times but today I am having a hard time with lighting my own path. I hope you can forgive me because I am not sure what this will look like when I am done. I am just going to write whatever comes out. My apologies in advance.
I am tired…. so -so tired. Tired of surviving of continually glueing the pieces to my life my heart and my soul back together over and over, my God when does it stop!
If you are here and have read any of the last 50+ articles that I`ve shared they are about my life my emotions, my triumphs and failures. I`ve tried to find that light to keep me moving forward. Don`t get me wrong I am also blessed yes; see I am a contradiction. My whole life has been just that.
I have had an internal dialogue that I have been aware of since the age of two. Unbelievable but no less the truth. I am sure we all do and when we become aware may be at different ages.
My trauma began at two, I am now 57. I have released and forgave and been through counseling for that early trauma. It doesn`t traumatize me anymore but one never forgets. Not to speak of the guilt for still loving those that victimized me. Why? why is there guilt for loving them, should there be? I have been asked HOW could you, well damn it they gave me life to begin with. They asked not just in words but by not denying their guilt when it mattered. And it mattered to my self-worth, my healing and my forgiveness. I love them, I miss them and as I`ve grown, I have come to understand them. It doesn`t excuse what was done, just aides in the healing.
The phone interrupted my erupting rage, and it was my longtime friend of 40+years needing to talk. My how the world can start and stop us in our own self-pity. I erased the paragraphs that followed the one above. They were just more of me revisiting the past. (negatively)
Yet isn`t that what OSJ is all about? Yes and no, dang contradiction once again. When I share, I try to leave on a positive note. That is why Make Me Strong was emotionally hard to share because I was in a dark dark place in my mind back then.
I have been a people pleaser my whole life. Being there for everyone else, giving even when I was hurting, like today when the phone rang, and I could hear in her voice she needed my undivided attention. I don`t regret removing the laptop from my lap and taking myself to a room where I could be “in the moment” with her. It helped calm me and, in the end, she was my therapy as much as I was hers.
I am tired but what right do I have to complain. So many have it worse than me. I am grateful and blessed but I`m am still tired and worn. My brother is slowly dying before my eyes and there is nothing, I can do but grant him his wish of dying here rather than a hospital.
Bill has been disabled since birth. My parents told to institutionalize him, yet they did not and loved him as best they could just as all of us. I`ve always put myself out as a protecter of him. Never asked to, I just did. He is a fine man. If I could have chosen a man who loved his family and did his best as my brother, I would have been a lucky woman. I am blessed to be his sister and I`ll honestly tell you what I am not proud of.
When he first asked me if he could come live with me, my first response was “I am really sick Bill. I want you to know that and have full knowledge.”
Selfless right? No, sadly I was hoping to discourage him because I had only just carved out Paradise for myself. My children grown and myself free from being too close to save them when problems arose. Free from family obligations, free to finally be me, my way. And I hadn`t figured that out totally. I had been told by the Drs it was quality time I had left not quantity. I wanted to have it all to myself to do what I wanted for once in my life.
He said he understood that I could die before him and still wanted to be with me. I told him yes. Inside I was torn. I took myself to a counselor someone who didn`t have a dog in the fight, so to speak. I only went twice to see her. I needed that safe place to dump what I was feeling. To at least air for my own ears my wants needs and desires. Once that was done, I put nothing but love in my heart and prepared my home and myself for the work ahead. 17 months he`s been with me and I wouldn`t have wanted it really any other way. My Dr asked- “Couldn`t you have said no?” Not and lived with myself was my reply and that is the truth.
He tries so much to help me, but he has all he can do even with the oxygen to shower and dress. I`ll advocate for him and his right to die his way until he draws his last breath. Home with me and not in a hospital where he is uncomfortable and alone, is what he`s asked for.
That is my friend, the crux of my emotional upset. I feel guilty for being tired and annoyed at times when I just sit down to rest and I`m called to come look at something he got for e-mail or he doesn`t understand. It isn`t his fault and I remind myself with a deep breath that it won`t be long and I`ll wish he was still here to annoy me with the mundane. I`m just tired….
Debbie, your words reveal the depth of love and sacrifice you embody. You say you are tired—so, so tired—and yet, you continue. You set aside your own long-awaited rest to honor your brother’s dignity, to ensure that he is not alone in his final journey. That is love in its truest form, the kind that asks everything of us and yet gives us something greater in return—meaning, connection, the quiet knowledge that we did not turn away when it mattered most.
Bahá’u’lláh says, ‘Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity... Be an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.’ That is what you are doing, even in your exhaustion. You are keeping a sacred trust, being an answer to your brother’s prayer for love, comfort, and presence.
I hope you find moments of rest within your service, and strength within your kindness. One day, when the burden lifts, may you look back and know that every tired breath, every moment of quiet frustration, was a gift of love that will never be forgotten.