Archive for ‘Grief’

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March 26, 2024

Birth Mothers Day……

by Rod Smith

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.

What will you get out of it? 

Nothing but the joy of knowing you did it. 

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief | 2 Comments »

March 3, 2024

How are you connected?

by Rod Smith

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.

It may feel like a battle but it’s worth it!

Posted in Adolescence, Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Divorce, Domination, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, In-laws, Listening, Long distance relationships, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Re-marriage, Recovery, Shame, Space, Step parenting, Stepfather, Stepmother, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust, Voice | Leave a Comment »

January 3, 2024

Listen up

by Rod Smith

To listen is to love.

Listening, no matter how skilled you are, cannot be faked. 

You may be a skilled multitasker but even you can’t listen and, at the same time, do other things. 

Even if you’re one of those people who can “spin a lot of plates at one time” or whatever the metaphor is, even you can’t do other things and listen and really hear the person talking to you.

Listening takes more than both ears. It takes both ears, both eyes, a closed mouth, and your whole focused body. 

Even thinking about or wanting to check your phone, let alone the shifty reptile-like quick glances you give it and think no one notices, upsets your capacity to hear and it disturbs the speaker’s ease in talking to you.

Another thing that really upsets listening is your own unresolved stuff with other people, living or dead. As soon as any person “goes deep,” the millisecond he or she approaches anything close to something unresolved in your life, even if it’s from years ago, it’ll set you off inside, close your ears, or start you talking. 

That’s how we ward off stuff, manage triggers, fight to keep things buried. 

To listen is to love.

It’s often the only thing someone may want from you.

No distractions

Posted in Boundaries, Business, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family Systems Theory, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Leadership, Listening, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Trust, Young Love | Leave a Comment »

December 26, 2023

Shed the bracelets……

by Rod Smith

WWJD?

“Now what would Jesus do?” asked the woman glancing at her WWJD bracelet. 

“Grape nuts,” replied the companion instantly, as if he’d served Jesus breakfast that morning. I slipped away pondering how the will and the ways of the greatest political, religious and social reformer of all time got reduced to a formula for grocery shopping. 

I am glad the use of these bracelets appears to be waning. It remains a great question, but wearing it on a wrist somehow suggests that the answer is easily accessible. It suggests that if you will simply stop and think a little, having eyed the bracelet, you’ll get the answer. Then, as you act on your newfound knowledge, your predicaments will be resolved, you will have a better life, and conditions in the world will improve all around for everybody. 

Quite the contrary: Answering the question and doing what Jesus would do in any situation is neither easily established nor executed. Finding the answer itself would take a lot of work, like tunneling back though a couple of thousand years, researching culture, geography and weather conditions and the varying political and religious climates. Then we’d have to identify, and then decipher, metaphor, understand and interpret tone and intent, and immerse ourselves in at least a few ancient languages. Besides all this, we’d need a working knowledge of the subcultures and the prejudices that existed within those subcultures. Then, with all this done, we might be able to decide what Jesus would do given some, but not all, situations we face. 

The next challenge, once we’ve established the answer, would be to have the courage to do what Jesus would do. WWJD is not about “doing the right thing.” Jesus did not always do the “right” thing. If that were so, no cross would have awaited him. Doing the “right thing” would have endeared him to those who mattered and would not have required him to buck authority.

Essentially Jesus laid a platform for his followers to live differently. It doesn’t take more than a reading of the New Testament to see that he despised pretentiousness and empty religious “performance” and was particularly vocal wherever he found religious zeal that was without internal transformation. He despised abusive systems and was a particular critic of those who ripped off others. 

I do not think Jesus cares what cereal you buy, or for that matter, what dress or suit you wear or how your hair is or is not cut. But I do believe he cared about what kind of person you are and whether you love mercy, humility, truth and justice, and challenge the systems where these qualities are absent. It is apparently forgotten that Jesus was hardly a nice guy. Today he’d be a threat to our political order and might not be able to find a church he’d attend, let alone one that would permit him to preach! Consequently doing what Jesus would do could significantly reduce your popularity, The real question, by the way, is not “what would Jesus do” but rather what will you do in response to what he has done?

Shed the bracelets. It’s not grape nuts or cheerios, but love and truth, mercy and justice, that might bring us all a little closer to reflecting who and what Jesus was. But be careful, you might shed the bracelet and exchange it for a cross – and it won’t be hanging around your neck.

—————————

When published in The Indianapolis Star, this column certainly got me some fans – and enemies. The morning it appeared my email was as hot! I was called brilliant, I was called stupid. One reader said that finally he’d read something by an intelligent Christian about a really stupid gimmick. Another said he’d be praying for my salvation even though he was convinced I was a lost cause.

Posted in Education, Faith, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

November 16, 2023

Thanksgiving is just around the corner….

by Rod Smith

Next week, aiming particularity for Thursday, millions of people in the United States will travel “home” to a family meal called Thanksgiving. It’s almost a given that, after turkey and mashed potatoes and all the “fixings” and before the football (American “Football” of course) on TV people will go around the table and express their gratitude for everything from the nation as a whole to grandma for fixing her trademark green beans. 

I confess, it is no easy holiday for an immigrant given that it’s my sons and me and no extended family, but we have grown accustomed to it and are always included in Nolan Smith’s (former Beachwood and Durban North person) family for Thanksgiving. 

I have my list ready to go:

I am grateful for my sons and the men they have become. They are honest and very hard working. They know how to conduct themselves in all contexts and I am often moved to tears when others tell me about some of the things they know about my sons.

I am grateful to my readers around the world. I never imagined that The Mercury would become the international platform that it has become for me. 

I am grateful for my extended family around the world who do such an amazing job of keeping in touch. Not a week goes by without a vibrant back and forth involving several continents. 

I am grateful for the speaking opportunities afforded me. It’s a demonstration of Beauty for Ashes and Grace-upon-Grace if ever I knew one.

I am grateful to be an American and to have dual citizenship with South Africa. Really, a man can love two nations. I know it is possible because I do.

My all-time favorite tie

Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief | 2 Comments »

November 13, 2023

Hand holding

by Rod Smith

There is no need to twist God’s Arm in ardent prayer seeking God’s Presence. 

Hold God’s Hand, instead.

It’s nearer than you may think. 

Right there, there’s God’s Hand. 

See it? 

It’s at the end of the arm of the woman begging at the traffic light. You and I and thousands of others drive off trying hard not to see her and when we do, many of us blame her for her addiction and say things like – in our heads of course – I am not paying for her next pack of cigarettes and I bet she has a cell phone.

Did you see God wave at the traffic light? 

God’s Hand is the hand of the unshaved man holding the begging cup and grasping his homeless sign.

You and I and thousands of others drive off remembering just how hard we work for our money and think – to ourselves of course – why can’t he work hard for his money and then you and I remembered how we pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps and why can’t he.

Then – to ourselves of course – we blamed the government.

What are they doing about this begging problem?

When we hold the hand of the lonely, the poor, the disenfranchised, the frightened, we are holding God’s Hand.

God’s Hand is near.

Posted in Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Grief, Leadership, Listening | 2 Comments »

November 12, 2023

Have you been a caregiver?

by Rod Smith

If you have been a caregiver to your spouse, a parent, friend, for any length of time and now that person has died, you may expect:

  • To feel that part of you is lost or gone because it is. Caring requires love and deep unique bonding — quite different from the bonding you already had prior to the season of caregiving. In the separation, in your own way, you are wounded. You are not damaged, you are wounded. Know the difference.
  • To feel you are rattling in a cage of caring habits and not quite sure of what to do or where to be. You feel pulled between responsibilities that no longer exist and feel irresponsible for not being present where you once were. In short, you don’t know where to be or what to do.
  • To experience some guilt about the way things turned out, developed or did not develop. You flood with questions: was there more you could have done to ease pain, prolong life, usher healing? Was something crucial missed, forgotten?
  • To feel guilty – at least momentarily – if you have fun.

Take heart. Like a child, who, arms outstretched, turns and turns until dizzy, falls to the ground, then rises to walk and appears to have had too much to drink, in the act of walking, balance and order gradually returns.

You will reorient after your double loss: a loved one and an integral role and find your feet.

Finding peace in “our” forest.

Posted in Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

September 4, 2023

I know it’s not Mothers Day but….

by Rod Smith

Writing, thinking, talking about our mother, Mavis Iona Smith, has never been easy.

I keep meeting unfinished business.

We confront each other occasionally – in casual social interactions when I regard, with an air of flippancy, a matter Mother would have offered serious consideration, or when I cook the “wrong” way.

It is among several of my chief regrets that I discovered, when it was too late, the importance of a man knowing his mother.

I hear Mom’s voice now and then.

Mom had a beautiful singing voice and would fill the house when mother sang.

“Just like Virginia Lee,” dad would say, “your mother sings just as beautifully. Listen, you can hardly tell the difference.”

Virginia Lee was one of South Africa’s top selling vocalists.

Sometimes my mother’s voice addresses me from some galaxy within my psyche. I usually smile and, despite her protestations, proceed however I choose. I get a perfected frown when I am tempted to bend the rules, stretch the truth.

I have seen Mother cast affirming smiles when I allow fairness, compassion, kindness and mercy to prevail.

I am regularly reminded that the umbilical cord is infinitely elastic; the woman who bore me, no matter how independent I appear to be, forever influences me, sometimes tugging a little, urging me toward what is right, good, merciful and honest.

(If the above is “bulky” in the reading it’s perhaps because dad permitted no pronouns when referring to one’s mother).

Mavis Iona Smith

Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

August 25, 2023

Grief — what shall I do with it?

by Rod Smith

The Mercury

“What shall I do with this grief,” she asked, having lost so much, one thing on top of another, enough loss for many people in a life-time.

You shall sit with it. Embrace it. As difficult as that may sound, you will let it do its work.

“What shall I do with the pain, the gaping hole in my chest, a wound in my soul, my very being?”

You will go into survival-mode, operate on automatic, auto-pilot, if you can operate at all. Then, you will arrange your life around it, at least for a while.

“But, I do not want this, the anguish, this disorientation.”

Nobody does. It is always an uninvited guest. It barges in without notice, without invitation. It is no respecter of persons.

“You are not being much help.”

Grief will do its work and ultimately you will find it in you to respond. The person within you, yes, the one who is, and who feels overwhelmed, drowned in sorrow, will be shaped by the losses and will emerge to be even more beautiful than you already are.

You will know and sense things and gain remarkable intuition and offer presence for others in ways you could never have imagined.

Despite it being a path that you’d never have chosen, you will use it well.

Posted in Faith, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

August 5, 2023

Tuesday this week

by Rod Smith

The array of twenty or more police cars, some with their lights still turning, had my full attention as I approached a busy city intersection.

Then I saw the young man, shoulders hunched, his hands tucked between his knees as if asleep on the street, dead.

The fist-sized red blotch in the center of his white t-shirt, had the boy been walking, may have passed for designer art.

At the time I drove by there was no crime-scene tape to keep people away but there was no one near him. No one was checking on him, trying to tend to him or comfort him.

A curtain of horror silenced onlookers, people of all ages who lined the periphery of this scene.

His aloneness shook me as much as the knowledge that he was dead, gone, no more.

Minutes before he was surely running, and now, nothing: no breath, movement, dreams, company or future.

Nothing.

And I could not fathom the depth of pain and sorrow that would soon be his mother’s, father’s, brothers’ and sisters’ and all who loved and taught and coached him.

He’d fallen, face away from where I passed by and so I never saw his face.

Where he’d been struck, marked by the red splash between the shoulders of his slender frame, perfectly in the center of his back, is what I did see.

And, and continue to see, over and over again.

May all who loved and all who knew this young man (19 years old – I read in a news report on reaching home) find comfort and peace.

RIP, A. Ray K.

(NOT FOR THE MERCURY)

Posted in Family, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

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