In a world of chaos and discord may you and I be part of the solution and not part of the problem. May we not fuel fruitless discussions but rather attempt to be agents of calm and sound reason.
In a world of selfishness and greed may you and I find it in ourselves to be self-aware and generous. May we assist when possible and necessary but may our help be carefully considered so that it is authentic, helpful and empowering help.
In a world of indifference and frequent contempt may you and I be engaged with others and accepting of others. May we learn the art of seeing, validating, and hearing people and loving those whom we may have formerly regarded with indifference had we noticed them at all.
In a world where many people are demanding and entitled, may you and I learn when to give way, to accommodate, to compromise, to yield, and when to stand firm. May we learn the art of repeated healthy responses to unhealthy expectations.
In a world of sarcasm, hurt and rejection may you and I represent hope. May we be people of healing and listening and grace. May you and I learn how to be safe people in an unsafe world.
Finding the opportunity to seek forgiveness, participate in repair or restitution with people whom I have hurt may result in their expressing forgiveness. While hearing such comforting words warms me, self-forgiveness remains difficult.
Do you have similar battles?
I know this is a particular struggle because having known what is right, good, wholesome, I have not always done what is right and good and wholesome. I find this painful to admit and address. Knowing better was hardly helpful.
While it is no excuse, I am aware that I am not too different from many.
When I am feeling down it feels as if my failures speak louder than any successes. Despite the knowledge that “people are more than their actions” shame seeps and runs deep and makes me feel vulnerable and fragile. It can be a physical sensation.
Again, I must ask, do you ever feel this way?
When I am at my best, I can humble myself, accept my imperfections and that I am a forgiven person.
Admitting I am flawed is key to my freedom which leads me to self forgiveness at which point freedom fills my soul.
“What parenting advice could you offer my wife and me,” said the delighted dad, “my son is 16 months young.”
Above all, love your wife with joy, freedom and courage. This will reduce and deflect loads of the anxiety that naturally tries to derail all childhoods.
Lavish your baby, then young child, then pre-teen and teenager with affirmation and affection. No matter what you and your wife face, when you come home from work, or he returns after time away, or when he wakes in the morning or in the middle of the night — baby or teenager — be glad to see him, and, say so. Verbally express the joys your son brings you, to each other, and to him.
Teach him to talk Joy.
Regard the ages 5, 8, 12, 14 and 16 as transition ages. At these times discuss with him your parental plans (your mutually agreed upon plans you’ve made as parents) to do less and less for him, while expecting more and more from him. Yes, even at 5 — point out that he can make his own, age-appropriate decisions. Include him in planning and establishing his growing independence. Plan your parenting so that by his eighteenth year your parenting roles are accomplished and he has all it takes to be an interdependent young adult.
Hold in high regard the beautiful idea that you parent (the verb) for his sake and not yours.
Our new painting will go up in my home-office this week….. from Friday this week, both of my adult sons are launched and living independently of me. Oh the joy; oh the niggling pain. #graceupongrace
“Chased,” he said, “I’m being chased, haunted by my past, my past of multiple addictions, — they follow me.”
“Like dogs?” I asked, “I have wild dogs too.”
“No,” he said, “large lions, and a tiger, coming from behind, waiting to pounce, attack. To scorn, belittle me.”
“How do you protect yourself?” I asked.
“I outrun them; get ahead. Do heroic things to prove them wrong. But, they follow, catch up, then I have to do it all again. What about you and the wild dogs?” he asked.
“I tried to ignore them,” I told him, “but they don’t like that. They squeal, bark louder. I tried to get ahead, outrun them as you do with your pursuers, but that’s temporary relief.”
“I know,” he confessed.
“I made a decision that made a big difference,” I said, “when I was at my most desperate when they were chasing me through dark hallways of my mind, barking at my heels, I stopped, slowly turned, faced them. Told them they were right, looked them in the eyes, gave them attention — then, they withdrew, got quiet, behaved as disciplined guide dogs. Now, they do their jobs.”
“Can I train my lion? My tiger?” he asked.
“You’ll never know,” I said, “until you look them in the eyes.”
In dozens, no scores, of ways it is never over or complete because some losses escape healing.
After severe loss accommodation is possible, a full life is possible, new relationships can develop, yet, the vacuum of some losses are never filled or covered or fully healed.
Many people, understandably, want to rush grief and want all pain to be gone.
Who cannot want pain to be gone?
I know that rushing grief serves to bury the pain, makes it run deeper into the soul, only to manifest later, often disguised as something unrelated to the initial loss.
No matter how long ago my loss may have occurred, I will welcome the tears I feel welling up. I will let them flow. I know tears are grief’s first agents, first responders in loss and tragedy. No matter how long past my loss may have occurred, I welcome my desire to talk about it. I know that speaking about my loss stimulates my grief to do its unique work. Conversations facilitate healing and recovery, especially conversations with those who have walked a similar path.
No matter how long ago my loss or breakup or violations may be, I will welcome my desire to write about it. I know that words strung together into sentences, then paragraphs, then chapters, can help construct a boardwalk for hurting people, and for me, to deliver our grieving into realms of newfound peace and continued healing.
The capacity to FORGIVE is a divine gift. It can precipitate healing within people and among groups of people. The person who initiates acts of forgiveness is usually (but not always) the one who reveals greater strength. He or she may be the one carrying the deeper burden. It is the stronger person (usually) who is first to forgive, and both parties – the forgiver and the forgiven – benefit from the act if apologies are expressed and accepted. When I choose to forgive I seldom have anything to lose, and usually much to gain.
I know I harbor resentment when I am uncomfortable being around a particular person and would rather avoid him or her. I know I am holding onto hurt when I have little or nothing positive to say to or about someone and when I find it hard to think positive thoughts about someone. I will forgive as efficiently as I find it possible and can muster the strength from within to do so.
I will forgive when someone’s actions toward me (real or perceived) seem sealed into my consciousness and I can’t let them out of the prison within my head. I know it’s time for me to forgive when I feel haunted by someone whose acts against me will not let me go. Forgiveness links me with the divine, heals fragile families, calms hurting communities and restores hope within broken people – and – sets the forgiver free.
Our daily walk takes us through this forest — a 5 minute walk from our home
I have the writer’s permission – for which I am most grateful – to print this letter, one which touched me deeply for the deep losses the woman faced. I am grateful the “adoption process” has undergone many necessary modifications making this scenario extreme and unique. Thank you, dear writer, your letter may assist others to also speak up.
Dear Rod:
I have just read your article about Mothers who gave up their babies for adoption. My heart bleeds for such mothers.
I’m so sorry.
But what about me?
I was adopted. I am also so sad and heartsore that I never was given the opportunity to meet my Mother.
Let me tell you my story…..
I was given away as a two-week-old baby to an old Afrikaans couple. I am 77 years now and have never forgotten the hardships I endured, day after day. She was a disturbed, neurotic woman. Religion was her obsession and he was an alcoholic.
I was beaten relentlessly with a stick, plank or by physical force. Slaps in the face was a common occurrence for any minor misdemeanor or suggestion. Never was I ever told that I was loved. Never was I loved, sympathized with if I was injured as all kids suffer minor accidents. I instead was sworn and cursed at and threatened that I would be given back to the orphanage if I didn’t behave. I was blamed for anything that went wrong even if a light bulb fused. I was not a bad child. I studied hard at school and was well behaved.
Nobody told me that I was adopted whilst I was young and I only got confirmation of that in my late teens, but believe you me, I just knew that I was adopted and always wondered why did my Mother give me away?
I knew there had to be a valid reason.
My adopted Father in a drunken stupor tried to kill me when I was 5 years old. I got a big hiding for that, as if it was my fault.
When I was 16 years old he tried to rape me several times. But I fought back each time. Why I never told any of my teachers I never knew. I thought at that time it was my fault.
I missed my Mother so much and always thought how wonderful it would be to meet her and always dreamt about her coming to fetch me from this hell hole.
But sadly, it never happened.
In my early thirties I could then afford to hire an agency to look for her. The Department of Adoption (or Welfare, I think it was called) gave me her name but was advised that she had passed away in her early forties.
I was devastated and heartsore that I had never looked for her earlier in my life.
I investigated her family and met her brother who told me that she was 16 years old when she was pregnant. Her Mother from a staunch Afrikaans background, forced her to give me up for adoption as it was a skande (SCANDAL) on the family name.
He told me that once a year on my birthday, she would lock herself in her room and just sob and sob.
How sad is that?
I was also given the details of the man who was supposed to be my father. I met him and he clearly remembered my Mother very well and was shocked to hear that she had a baby. We had a blood test done and it was told to us that out of a very low percentage of men in Kwa Zulu Natal who could be my father, he fell within that category.
That was a small bonus for me.
Adoption is a very sad part of life.
Sometimes you are given to wonderful parents and sometimes to terrible parents.
I do believe that for at least 5 years Social workers should stay connected with the adoptee.
To the Mothers who gave up their babies, I feel for you with my whole heart and soul.
I cry for you.
I too would like to attend the lunch and would gladly be a guest speaker to all the Mom’s who gave up their babies.
This is a wonderful service you are offering to the Mothers who gave their babies away. I applaud you.
A few years back my sons and I attended a Birth Mother’s Day Dinner with about 19 brave birth moms, women who’d chosen to place their babies for adoption.
They lit candles.
Some held treasured ear-marked photographs.
There was talk about their love and support of all moms everywhere who have made the powerful choice of adoption.
All were deeply contemplative – for a few, memories from hard choices made 50-plus years ago were revisited.
A few women remained silent, holding tightly to affirmed, supported anonymity.
Mothers who have chosen adoption for their babies are often ignored on Mothers Day.
And, how their hearts must surely ache.
May 12, 2024, several nations, including South Africa, will celebrate Mothers Day and an unseen army of brave women will quietly witness other families rightfully celebrating Mothers Day and find no place at the tables with the children whom they generously offered to families eager to love their babies.
I admit, my awareness of birth mothers is acute.
These women, often shamed, labeled as irresponsible, hard, or uncaring, have radically shifted my life. Each of my boys’ mothers fought untold difficulties – unknown to me – while carrying her child to full term, in full knowledge other options existed.
Despite abandonment, derision from family members, financial difficulties, and who knows what other pressures, each delivered a beautiful baby and made the hard choice to forever enrich my life by allowing me, a single man, to adopt her infant son.
I know you are not forgotten – not on Mothers Day weekend or any other day.
You are so deeply etched into their individual psyches and into our family experience that you are regularly part of our awareness and conversation.
So deep is their desire for you, so deep is the urge for a mother that my boys sometimes called me “mom”.
I have never stopped them. I let it go because I think I know what it’s about.
It’s a primal urge.
It expresses a heartfelt longing.
To stop them, when each was learning to talk, seemed unwise, as if I were stopping something deep, powerful within each.
“Mama” or “mom” and even “mother” seemed to come as easily as rolling over, as cooing, as first steps, and as all those things that come with early development – and so I let it go.
It was as if “mother” and all forms of Her names were buried within each boy to emerge and be attached to the nearest, warmest person no matter what his or her gender.
Yes, the woman waiting your table at your Mothers Day lunch, the teacher whom your child adores, the woman co-worker who goes silent for no identifiable reason or who appears to be sometimes lost in another world when the conversation turns to babies or showers or Mother’s Day, just may be a member of that unseen army of birth-mothers. She may be one of the gracious, brave women who have made Mother’s Day complete for countless women around the world and given a man like me the unique pleasure of sometimes being called “mom.”
I ache for the millions of women whose Mothers Day is tainted with shame, loneliness, disconnection, for having made the tough choice for adoption.
If that’s you or almost you, and are in KZN, and your adoption was recent or decades ago, I have an invitation for you.
Please join me for lunch or an early dinner on May 11, 2024 – yes, the day before Mothers Day is referred to as Birth Mothers Day.
Come alone or bring a friend. I shall speak briefly, simply to thank you and honor your bravery.
Expenses for your lunch will be fully covered – I have already received several financial gifts to cover costs.
The venue will be beautiful and private and safe —- details are unfolding.
Please email Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za so we can get you — and a friend — onto the list and get details to you as they unfold.
Generous readers, restaurateurs, sponsors, gift bag creators, please email Shirley you’d like to pay for a meal or sponsor a table or assist in any manner.
Closing note.
I know this is a tough invitation, Birth Mom.
But, you have already demonstrated your strength.
Join me, please.
[if you’re in the USA and want to give, all gifts are tax deductible— contact me and I’ll guide you through the easy process of giving to OpenHand International, a 501C3 corporation]
Soon several nations, including South Africa, will celebrate Mothers Day.
In affluent areas restaurants will have table reservations for several generations of mothers. In modest settings a bowl of flowers may be arranged for mom.
As a dad to adopted sons I ache for the millions of women (and who sometimes sit silent at the same tables) whose Mothers Day is tainted with shame, loneliness, disconnection, for having made the tough choice for adoption.
Many women have expressed Mothers Day is not for them, that it’s among the most painful days they endure.
If that’s you or almost you, and are in KZN, and your adoption was recent or decades ago, I have an invitation for you:
Please join me for lunch or an early dinner on May 11, 2024. Come alone of bring a friend. Expenses for your lunch will be fully covered. The venue will be beautiful and private and safe —- details still unfolding.
Please email Shirley@ShirleyWilliams.co.za so we can get you — and a friend — onto the list and get details to you as they unfold.
Happy Birth Mothers Day, brave woman.
Generous readers, restaurateurs, sponsors, gift bag creators, please email Shirley you’d like to pay for a meal or sponsor a table or assist in any manner.
Your family – blood-, marriage, relatives-by-choice, adoption, and any other means people become family – is vastly more than a list of people on your group-chat or birthdays to try and remember or the ready-made crowd for weddings and funerals.
The hundreds of links (a family of 4 has 16 relationships) in your network – your family – and how you are linked (just right, over-connected, under-connected, loosely-affiliated, cut-off in anger, the “I’ll never talk to him/her-again” kind of connection) is of crucial importance.
How you are connected will either sustain and support and nourish you or drain and exhaust you. And, there is no escaping. Severe disconnections can wield a driving power even in a so-called non-relationship.
We are all “linked” and positioned in a variety of ways within the same extended family and so a family can nourish and support while, at the same time, it can rip to shreds and bleed someone dry.
I’d like to avoid this dramatic contrast but simply look around — listen to people’s family stories — you’ll see it is so.
We are each integral to the health (and un-health) of our family.
We are each a cell-within-the-whole.
The healthier we are, the more “just right” our connections, the more we will be nourishers and be nourished within the unique group of people we each call family.
The healthier I am will lead to a healthier “we” even if it results in hardship* along the way.
* attempts at greater health will be met with resistance from those around, especially those who’ve “benefited” from unhealthy habits and patterns.
difficultrelationships.com 