Archive for ‘Grief’

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July 22, 2023

Covered this week…….

by Rod Smith

IOWA

Dear Participant:

I have had the joy of being with you this past week: several of you shared meals with me and we met in ways I know I will remember. I hope you will, too. Thank you. Given the time I would have enjoyed such an opportunity with each of you. During your first session with me I told you I would give you my notes from each of my talks. If you read this letter today or in ten years it is all ok with me. People do what they are ready to do. Keep them. See how well they age. Remind yourself that I repeatedly said I am addressing the future you.

Day One I tried to tell you how unique and beautiful you are. This is not an older adult attempting to convince you of something adults generally want you to believe. As I said I really have never met  – 50 countries and thousands of people later – anyone, anywhere who is not beautiful. Yes, I have met people who have done really ugly things and done a few myself, but, you (we) are beautiful. Get to know any human by listening, really listening, and I believe you will soon agree with me.  We talked about leadership: I said Leadership is a Function, a role, not a position. If your motive in becoming a leader is to see your name at the top of a list or to be the boss, your distorted motive will be your constant hurdle. Leadership is about who and what you are and what you do within a community. It is not about status. If it is the status you seek, your drive for recognition will persistently contaminate your leadership. To lead others effectively it is necessary to know what you are good at and what you are not good at. Work at your strengths. Accommodate your weaknesses. Both are yours for the long-haul.  

I encouraged you to consistently define yourself. If you don’t, someone will. Resist the natural anxious urge to define others. Become an expert in your own behavior. Resist the natural (anxious) urge to be an expert in the behavior of others, especially those who annoy you. Listen more than you speak. Make sure you are hearing, not waiting to talk. I closed saying Self-Leadership has by far the greatest impact on how effective you are as a leader. If you can’t lead yourself you can effectively lead nothing and no one.

Day Two I emphasized your (and my) uniqueness. I urged you to find within the depths of where your hearts, minds, spirits, souls meet (see it as a kind of Venn diagram) the beautiful “place” generally referred to as the SELF. YourSELF is beautiful, it’s as unique as your fingerprints, your voice, and your personality. It is shaped by your family history, your DNA, by enduring joyful and nurturing experiences. It is shaped also by trauma, by loss, grief and so much else. This SELF is resilient. The Self wants to be well. It self-repairs (given conducive conditions). It is not Selfish to find and love and know yourSelf. I would suggest it is selfish NOT to. People who avoid Self-Awareness because they consider it selfISH are usually people who put stress on leadership teams and on friendships and battle with boundary confusion – “I am I, you are you, we are we, Let’s not confuse the three” – Remember? It’s corny BUT if you live it, it will save you a LOT of pain and therapist bills!

Day Three I emphasized your God-given desire for Autonomy.  It’s part of your humanity. To desire self-directedness (AUTONOMY – SPACE, ROOM TO MOVE, freedom to be yourself) comes with your birth package. When it is unfulfilled – or ignored – you will be discontent. You have a similar God-given desire for Intimacy. This is part of your humanity. We all want some closeness, to belong, to be part of. Accepting that these Dueling Desires live within you and recognizing they are present in all the people will make it easier for you to welcome both into their legitimate place within your life. You (and I) really grow up when you (we) meet these needs in yourself AND understand that others are similarly driven. When your best friend chooses to be alone (wants Autonomy) it is not a rejection of you (necessarily) if you, at the same time, want Intimacy. Remember, you cannot LOVE and CONTROL the same person.    

This afternoon (Thursday) and Day Four, I left you with eight things I would tell my younger self:

  1. Save, and never touch, one third of all the money you earn. Few people regret having saved from an early age. Few things upset adulthood as well as financial pressures. 
  2. Honor your family and extended family relationships above all other relationships. If you are a brother or a son, a niece or an aunt, be the best one you can be. 
  3. Learn to live without blaming others. While others are indeed imperfect, blaming others for anything will seldom get you to where you really want to go. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope). 
  4. Forgive, truly forgive, but remember. To forgive and forget is often foolish and even impossible. Remembering is not the same as holding a grudge. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope). 
  5. Find your VOICE and hold onto it. Finding your voice means figuring out what you want your life to say. Only a small portion of finding your voice has to do with actual words.  
  6. Every unfortunate or bad thing that happens to you will ultimately offer you a choice. Will it become SEED (for growth) or STONE (resentment or hardness)? Seed will be most helpful to you. The choice will always be yours.  
  7. Pursue (chase) education even over romance. Few people regret having a sound education. 
  8. Gain understanding about your power, the power that comes with being human. Treasure it; Protect it, Deploy it. Use it for its intended purpose only.

I have loved being with you. Thank you. I especially enjoyed the Talent Show and the party. I loved watching your amazing capacity to have fun and I particularly enjoyed seeing some of you who arrived earlier this week appearing shy and withdrawn having the time of your lives.

Rod

Dad, Uber Driver, International Speaker and Newspaper Columnist 

07-20-2023 

Posted in Addictions, Adolescence, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Business, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Parenting/Children, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust | Leave a Comment »

July 19, 2023

Harold and Maud

by Rod Smith

I am sure things stick in your memory as they do in mine.

My parents home on Blackburn Road was the most open home you could imagine.

Strangers were simply people whom you were yet to know.

Week in, week out, on a Sunday our home was open to a flow of family and friends who stayed for lunch and then often stayed for dinner after and afternoon around the pool. All of this occurred while my parents also ran their grocery shop at the front of our property and to which our home was attached.

Often there’d be a dozen or even twenty people for Sunday lunch and my parents were never alarmed when new people showed up, often unannounced.

One couple, apparently our mother’s distant cousins, were regulars. Harold and Muad (of course not their real names) were known for their wealth and their beach-side home in an affluent part of the city. 

Harold and Maud were regulars, coming Sunday after Sunday for lunch, often staying for dinner. 

After my parents sold the grocery shop and after my mother’s death, dad let me know he’d dropped in to see the cousins while out on a Sunday afternoon drive to ease his loneliness.

“Can you come back later, we are having lunch,” said Harold.

As far as I know, Dad never returned.

Not ever.

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

July 16, 2023

Readers respond….

by Rod Smith

There is so much to learn from two readers who have responded to a recent column about unfinished grief:  

“My husband died after a very long illness (about 8 years, although it’s hard to know when exactly it started) and after the initial shock, which lasted about three months, I started to think again. I can now say, five years later, that I am very grateful his pain has ended and some relief has come to our immediate and extended family. Of course I wanted a different outcome but I am now living with what I have.” 

“Thank you for sharing the Path of Grief. My husband died almost 3 years ago. I still feel I am on a journey without him and could not contemplate ‘moving on.’ It’s a process and we who are grieving are all on our own path. Life is just so so different after losing a partner, I was married for 61.5 years so never knew a life without my husband but day by day we begin to live again as they would want us to. I’m one of these people who continually talks to my late husband telling him things that are happening in my life and with the family.”

Posted in Faith, Family, Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

July 12, 2023

Airport reader….

by Rod Smith

“I am sitting at the Johannesburg Airport Hotel passing time until my flight to reunite with my family in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. I fell upon your column about dealing with grief. What an inspiring article! Thank you for that. I have not suffered the type of grief one can hardly recover from so far and by God’s grace. I can only imagine one’s loneliness in it. Well done for your advice. Go well my friend. It will be nice to meet you one fine day.”

The reader quoted above was inspired by my writing. I, in turn, am deeply encouraged and also inspired by her response to the column. It’s a very good feeling to open emails to such a warm response. Such responses are what keeps me writing. Added, the writer reveals that she has read the column outside of the usual area of the newspaper’s readership.  

Writing about grief usually gets a lot of reader response. There are a lot of people struggling with loss and are at a loss about how to cope. It is apparently a topic visited only when people are in need. This is fully understandable. Who wants to talk about such things when there is little or nothing to grieve?

Posted in Education, Faith, Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

July 8, 2023

What DO you do with unfinished grief…..?

by Rod Smith

“What do you do when you are sometimes overcome with grief years after a significant loss and people do say insensitive things to you?” a reader asks.

You try to learn about yourself, about others, from all that happens to you and all the things people say and ask. You try to grow from it. By growth I mean by doing your part to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and others. You challenge yourself to become kinder than you already are even towards insensitive people. You commit developing greater and authentic empathy for others who have also suffered loss and those who will suffer loss but seem not to know it.

How we, you and I, respond, react, and reply to what occurs to us and is said to us reveals what kind of person is living within the deepest recesses of our hearts, minds, souls. Our responses to the actions of others reveals and exposes who we really are. Awareness of what’s within us will hopefully lead you and me to a commitment to the beautiful journey of repeatedly unleashing the kindness and grace living within you and me (and all people) that we may enhance the lives of others in our individual spheres of influence.

Posted in Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

July 6, 2023

Unfinished grief

by Rod Smith

Grief after a significant loss is seldom completed.

I believe this to be true for all whose lives are hit by loss, those who are most immediately impacted, and those who are in the wider circle of relatives and friends. Things don’t “go back to normal” and if they appear to, it’s no indication that the grieving period is over or complete. Such appearances can be as necessary as they are deceiving.

In the best of circumstances lives rearrange. Families re-calibrate. Relationships, close and distant, re-align. 

Hearts  – feelings and will to live – and minds  – thinking and planning – can be strengthened. The capacity to re-think a future is possible but such transitions, often expressed as spurts of change and moments of apparent growth are unlikely to be the result of determined planning. They are more likely to occur as a result of desperation, a will to live, a need to survive.

Although it can sound harsh, even cruel, the outsiders’ push for people to “move on” or the repeated sentiment and falsehood that “time heals” are all part of a community’s ache to survive and part of the unwelcome journey of necessary re-calibration and necessary adjustments after significant loss.

Posted in Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

June 21, 2023

A son’s tribute to his mother

by Rod Smith

I attended a celebration of life held in honor of a former colleague and treasured friend. Among several outstanding speakers, it was her son’s content and delivery which caught my attention. He wrapped his mourning in the sheer delight remembering his mother. With his permission here are a few nuggets from which I think all parents can learn: 

“If I close my eyes and think of my mom, I’m usually met with the same image. She’s standing in an apron, while her white hair is littered with varying streaks of color because she has scratched her head with the wrong end of a paintbrush. She is laughing, always laughing, even though there’s probably a pot of rice burning in the background in the kitchen somewhere.”

“For my mom life was meant to be lived and lived well. That was easy for her because she knew Joy. I think she knew joy because at some stage before I was born she traded her sorrows for joy. She made a pact with joy, and no one could take it from her.”

“We were pushed to think big and be brave; we were never mollycoddled.”

“My mom lived without fear because at some point before I was born, she traded fear for the pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, and true understanding.”

Posted in Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

June 18, 2023

Father’s Day — the day after

by Rod Smith

When my sons reveal certain physical aptitudes, expose some odd humorous bent, display a uniquely characteristic nod of the head, tilt of the jaw, it crosses my mind that I may be “seeing” their biological dads, glimpsing some semblance of the men who fathered them.

I do think about these two men — especially on Father’s Day — and hope they thriving wherever they are. In ways that my sons may also ponder, although I have not asked them, I wonder who these men are. I consider if each even knows about the baby he fathered or, if he does, thinks about, grieves about what he has sacrificed, missed, or lost.

I would jump at the opportunity of meeting my sons’ biological fathers. I’d go to such an event alone and find an opportunity to express my thanks for their vast contribution to our lives. I’d try to suss out how they’re each doing in hopes of suggesting an opportunity for them to meet our sons. I’d offer my sons the opportunity to choose his path toward connection with his biological father and hope that each would embrace such a connection and enjoy the long term potential and benefits from such an opportunity.

Heard from both boys at the crack of dawn

Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

June 6, 2023

Ten days

by Rod Smith

There were 32 of us from 14 countries.    

Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Namibia, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and several other African countries were well represented. Three were from the USA. One was from the UK and one was from Canada. 

We were a collection of pastors and counselors, writers, journalists, and artists. Two were television journalists who covered little known wars. I was aware of at least 1 engineer. 

I heard people speaking English, Portuguese, Xhosa, and several languages I could not identify. 

While I have no way of knowing anyone’s net worth it became clear from multiple conversations that some lived on very very little while others have all they’ll ever need. 

Several people among us had buried their children, faced wars, famine and experienced violence first hand. 

Some had faced forced removals and had to resettle in areas unknown. At least 2 had endured brutal torture. 

For 10 days we lived together, shared meals, and talked. We learned. We laughed. We listened. Some cried. 

Over the days it became clear that happiness and peace and goodwill all come from within and defy purchase. We learned, some for the first time and some again, that it’s not where someone lives that delivers contentment, but always how.

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Leadership, Listening | 2 Comments »

May 11, 2023

Mother’s Day returns – a longer post than usual

by Rod Smith

Mother’s Day. 

It’s here. 

Again. 

Beautiful and brutal. 

Gut wrenching for the Smiths from a dozen angles while also displaying a vast array of flowers, tropical, indoor-outdoor whites, greens, shades of purple, yellows, sturdy, strong and luscious, endless developing beauty — reaching for sunlight, proclaiming life and charisma  — even within our motherless home. 

It’s the early 2000s and Mother’s Day: the boys wake, wander into my room, at least one son is aware of the day given the many things he had to draw, cut, glue and color at school for me, his dad-mom. He’s also performed in “Mother’s Day Bunny” where I was the only dad in attendance. The school’s admirable efforts to include us, or rather efforts to never exclude us, get a little ridiculous but I play along lest some real mother get whiff that my children be faced with the truth that they don’t know their mothers, a reality from which we, in the privacy of our home, have always openly addressed. Blanket strewn over his shoulders and with an inspiring attempt at positivity, he says, “Happy Mama-Day, Dadda,” and I embrace him and then his brother trailing dutifully behind and I leave it at that.

We meander through the morning, sometimes sluggishly, but with momentary caffeine-stirred urges to “make it memorable for the boys.” 

At lunch the restaurant tables are packed with girls-and-boys-with-mothers and flowers and gifts piled high with color and sweetness. Octogenarian mothers swoop in to hug multiple generations vying for hug-inclusion as raucous laughter buzzes through the air.

Friends see us and platitudes flow as they do when people don’t know how to talk about loss or abandonment or death while attempting kindness to quell their glaring uneasiness. 

“You’re in a better place.” 

“God knew your dad could be both.” 

“You know it’s extra special to be ‘chosen,’” a mother says to my son as if she’s the first to offer adoption this spin.

I’m uncertain. Should I laugh, cry or lead the boys out the door and flee the overload display of all my boys don’t have?

Instead, we’re three-strand strong, and face it as if nothing can touch the Smith-bulwark.

It’s Mother’s Day and about 2015: my first-born off-handedly reports he’s going to make a gift for his mom and, his car loaded with equipment, he leaves. Mid-afternoon he returns, buries himself in his room to emerge hours later with a 4-or-so minute movie that still blows my mind every time I watch it. I don’t know if his mother ever saw her gift on YouTube but within 24 hours he was interviewed on a local news station and his “letter” had traveled the world. I have a hunch his mother did see it but I know she did not respond. A few years later he reached out very directly to her to be firmly and gently rebuffed.

“Adoption is a very powerful tool,” I whispered into his ear as I tried to comfort my distraught son as he sobbed and sobbed. 

“Thank you for the choice you made. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he wrote, time-stamped seconds after his biological mother expressed her wish not to hear from him again. The boy was ashen, disoriented, for days.

Yes. Adoption is a powerful tool. 

Rest assured, my boys’ mothers, despite their physical absence, have been more than present in our lives. They are not sitting proud at our all-male out-of-the-way Mother’s Day table, but they are ever-present guests as we steel ourselves for life together. 

Nate did not learn his gentleness from me. He did not get his unflappable nature from me. I’ve spent much of my life in a hurry, and, apart from when on sports fields or a basketball court, he’s never rushed a moment in his life, not even when chasing the dog. I didn’t teach him to anticipate when I’m not feeling well and to silently — late in the night — enter my bedroom and place ice water next to my bed in the event I may want it. 

I like to think we as a family are generally kind people, but, I tell you, Thulani’s natural kindness cannot be taught, tutored or trained. 

He was born kind. 

Kindness tumbled down through generations of his kin despite the traumas and brutality they knew. Kindness flowed into my boy from unknown generations like the mother’s milk he never tasted. 

My sons’ mothers may not be at the table with us on Mother’s Day but I meet them every day in the beauty with which each of the generous women stamped their claim on the lives of our shared, fabulous sons. 

Had I an opportunity to reunite with my sons’ mothers I’d say a deep and welled up “thank you” for the gifts of two magnificent humans with whom I’ve shared the last 25 years. I’d say “thank you” for the bravery it took each woman to make her generous choice. 

I salute you, your bravery, your untold story, your capacity to engage in enduring, long-distance and painful, love. 

Happy Mother’s Day to birth moms everywhere.

Artist: William Onker

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief | Leave a Comment »

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