I suppose the real regret of not really knowing her began to emerge when I was a teen-ager, but it became most compelling, predictably, when I had to disperse her ashes. For what I am sure were good reasons, none of which I can now recall, and despite being the youngest of three with a father still living, the task of sprinkling her remains was assigned, perhaps by default, to me. I did it alone one warm and sunny morning, having told no one what I was about to do. 

The crematorium had called twice to say mother’s ashes were ready before I picked her up, then, instead of scattering the ashes immediately, I took them home and placed them under my bed. It was months before I retrieved them for the priest-like act of dispersal, even though she had told me exactly where and how and when she wanted it done. On the day I chose, I placed her on the car seat next to me – the car boot did not seem right – and made my way to the Japanese Gardens.  Her name in gothic print caught my eye and at every glance, I felt the need to make conversation like strangers on a bus may feel but  I resisted, not knowing how or where to begin.

According to her repeated wishes, I made my way toward a public garden I knew she loved. As I prepared to cross the wooden bridges into the carefully manicured gardens, holding the box uneasily away from my body, all of what I had not done as a son tumbled through my mind in the uneasy and disjointed style of a rather crass home movie.

I walked the carefully tended lawns holding her at arm’s length, tripping over my guilt. Persisting to a place I considered more beautiful than any other, from some distant universe, relayed through the sky, reflecting off the ocean to the surrounding trees, moving through my body and securing me to the earth, I heard Mother affirm my choice of rolling deep green landscape and I held the box to my chest and stood alone against the moment, this final act, a sense of wonder, an acknowledgement of deep regret.

I waited.

I was ready to spread the ashes.

Seated on my haunches, I rented the box open, peered at the gravel, white and coarse, and I placed my fingers knuckle deep, feeling the dry chalk and dust. I felt again the talcum powder she so liberally used in the sweet-smelling, steamy bathroom of fogged mirrors and slippery floors, wet with scattered, twisted towels. I saw again the powder’s trace from the bathroom to her bedroom to the tranquil gardens that surrounded me, and I knew again the scented smell, strong and lingering all through the house of my early years. Her sandy remains powdered my hands, falling easily through my fingers to the grass around my feet and to the beds of colorful flowers. The ashes fell into the colors of the tropical flowers and became part of the robust flesh, touched then, with new and delicate shading. Her dust colored the dirt between the rows of saplings, lending it a sallow complexion. Remains blew and landed, leaving a trail of white against the sturdy, solid green of the African buffalo grass.

When the dust had settled, I tipped the drab empty box, her full name declared loudly in a gothic font on one side, into a refuse bin I saw attached to a nearby tree and broke into a steady run, weaving my way past crowds of playing children, adults chatting on picnic blankets, all oblivious of my morbid but accomplished, task.

I cried all the way home. My chest heaved. My body rocked. When my throat clogged with phlegm, I stopped the car at a familiar clearing in a sugarcane field to vomit. Bent double, I got out and, as if from the center of the Earth, spewed a lifetime of missing the mark. 

Then I turned from the pungent odor, shut the car door and made my way home.

I gave Dad the paperwork the next time I saw him.

It was easier to spread the ashes than I thought.  

I should have done it sooner.

I have treid to capture the essence of what I heard a woman say about her mother. I think I have covered all the points and, althoug using my own words, capatured the tone of love and expressed admiration as she talked on hre mother…

My mother (in her 80s) is one of the most active women of her age I have ever known or heard about. It is quite wonderful how she keeps in contact with her family all over the world and remembers everything important. She forgets ‘little things’ here an there but no more or less than people half her age. I hsve never known anyone to be so forgiving and trusting and it is not that she has had an easy life. She has outlived two husbands and two or her 5 sons and daughters and three grandchildren. There has been so much change in the world during her lifetime but she has never been ‘stuck’ in the past or afraid of change. Mother follows sports, gives to charites, visits her friends and knows her neighbors. She hss never lost ber sense of humour – especially when it comes to the retirement home where she lives. Mother is not critical of the young and never gives the impression that the ‘old days’ were better than today.    

Who are you and who are you becoming?

We respond. We react. We learn. We hurt. We recover. We become. And we become more and more. We become day-by-day, year-by-year. We become what we do want. We become what we don’t want. 

A healthy identity is found in knowing, doing, enjoying what you are good at while accepting and embracing what you are not good at. 

It is being brave enough to discover and articulate what you want and what you do not want. 

There is much about your identity over which you have had no control and no say like where and when and to whom you were born. 

There is much about your identity that is in your hands to shape like how ardently you will seek an education, how strongly you will enforce your personal boundaries, how much you will protect and enjoy your deepest friendships.  

Our identities are wrapped in several layers, that which know and don’t know (think Iceberg). In concert, they have had a profound impact on who we have been, who we are, and who we will be.

Enjoy yourself and who you are becoming. 

If you cannot enjoy yourself can you just imagine how difficult it may be for others to enjoy you.

It’s Independence Day. 

I am reminded why I, an immigrant, love the USA…..

Opportunities are real: It is no exaggeration that this is a land of opportunity. Men and women of all ages, racial groups, ethnic groups, from scores of nations have “made it” here in the USA. 

Freedom is real: I can, I do, hold opposing political views of some close friends. Like i think I do, they have very good reasons for voting the way they vote and believe what they believe.

Resilience is real: It is a credit to this nation that vast extremes find simultaneous representation and hundreds of millions of people are able to “hold the tension” such extremes deliver. 

I have visited several nations where extremes would not be tolerated. It is my experience that in the USA one can be “left of Bernie and right of Rush” and find a welcome and acceptance with neighbors who reject both. (For those outside the USA Bernie is a US senator known for left wing views. Rush was a national radio personality considered by many to represent the far-right.)    

I am on rare occasions asked why I don’t typically post political content. First, a son asked me not to. Then, people vote how they vote for far deeper reasons than is likely to be influenced by social media. I seek no debate. I post this today because I do want my friends to know why I love the USA as much as I also love the land of my  birth – I have lived exactly half my life in each.

Learn the ART of living fully in your own head, and only, in your own head. Think for yourself. Try not to interfere when others think for themselves even when they express thoughts you’d never think. It’s allowed. MINDing your own business, avoiding crossovers, is a crucial and necessary art in the empowering business. Like everything, it begins at home. Your spouse, adult sons and daughters, your parents, all the adults you know have unique brains capable of their own thinking. You may find this harder than it sounds if you are accustomed to living in multiple heads other than your own, and in your own.

Why is this important? It’s fundamental to trust, growth, respect, equality, mutuality and all those good things. I’d suggest it would be highly disrespectful of me to assume I am better at doing your thinking than you are at doing your thinking. If I focus my mind on my business and trust you will do the same, the meeting of our minds has the potential to enhance both of us. Conversely, if every time we talk or spend time together you cross over in my head it is likely much of my energy will be spent, not in thinking and exploring with you, but in attempts to safeguard my head-territory. 

   Some of the clothes I am taking on my next trip

What will you do with your anger? 

I suggest you get in first. 

You will either deal with it or it will deal with you.

Yes, get in first.

Waiting too long may be to your detriment (it tunnels deeper and deeper into you) and the detriment of those who love you (who are subject to your hurtful outbursts) and those around you (who dance on eggshells around you). 

What many fail to understand is that Anger does not have the same capacity for denial its hosts have. The angry man or woman may claim “No Anger Here” and call the outbursts by more acceptable, nice-sounding names names, but anger doesn’t care about its hosts or how it is named or paraded.

Its a destroying virus and like any virus it attaches and grows and spreads and has no boundaries or limitations.

You will either deal with Anger or Anger will deal with you.

If you are reading this and getting angry – well, what more do you need?

Get the help you think you don’t need.

When you are calm and objective and can talk about how anger is eating you up – you are most available for help.

Fire can be fought with fire.

Not anger. 

Anger cannot be fought with Anger.

Destruction awaits.

Superpowers with no-strings-attached

I’m convinced that all humans have superpowers and when deployed, we have the capacity to radically transform for good our immediate circle of influence.

Hospitality is a superpower. As powerful as opening our home to guests and strangers is, it goes beyond that. It’s opening our hearts to all whom we encounter. It’s simple friendliness, a no-strings-attached welcome to all. 

Generosity is a superpower. It’s instinctive to share, to give, to alleviate burdens for others. When we extend this natural gift to those who least expect it from us, it elevates natural generosity into a superpower. It’s planned, no-strings-attached sharing of time and resources. 

Listening is a superpower. When we offer people undistracted, no-phone-glancing attention and hang onto every word someone says, we validate his or her story, his or her existence, and our own. It’s a no-strings-attached gift proclaiming “I see, hear and value you” in an often cold and indifferent world. 

Our capacity to treat all other people as equals (which we are) and with respect (which all people deserve) is a superpower. We can learn powerful and important lessons from anyone and everyone. This no-strings-attached acknowledgment of the treasures within all people, respects and elevates and empowers all.

What relationships are “beyond” repair? What about forgiveness and reconciliation?

Relationships are beyond repair when there has been any kind of violence. This includes emotional violence, sexual violence, physical violence. Repair is also unlikely where there has been pointed cruelty in the form of abandonment, betrayal, infidelity, demeaning or vicious behaviors. 

Reconciliation, as in getting back together, where such behaviors have occurred, is probably not impossible – miracles do happen – but it is usually not wise. Toxic behaviors – as listed –  are likely to reoccur when anxiety, stressors and stress, which are part of all relationships, return. No matter how deep or profound the change which facilitated forgiveness and reconciliation may have been, former behaviors are likely to resurface in the face of common life pressures. 

Even in the most extreme situations forgiveness may be possible. With enough time and distance and experience while under the spell and power of bitterness and resentment and its work within he or she who withholds grace and forgiveness, victims often welcome the relief and freedom which forgiveness delivers. He or she who has already been a victim often sees that holding on or staying angry becomes yet another form of emotional abuse. 

But, forgiving does not mean the relationship will or must continue.

Respect, trust, confidence – these treasures are intertwined, inseparable – are the life-blood of all healthy relationships. They are the “fresh air” and sunshine and vitamins of friendships, be they romantic or professional or platonic, or anything in between. 

Once lost or defiled, respect, trust, and confidence are very difficult, but not impossible. to reclaim or rebuild. 

While there are endless ways relationships are ruined, where trust is broken and confidence is defiled, and respect has been lost, repair is a rather simple, but not an easy journey.

Repair begins with humility, acknowledgment and apology. 

These elements are required of all parties, not only the person who is regarded as the offender. The person who has broken trust requires the humility to acknowledge damaging actions and the courage to apologize in order to find repair and begin to restore respect. But, reconciliation and repair will be impossible if the offended lacks humility and is unwilling to enter discussions with the possibility of reconciliation in mind. 

It takes two (or more) to tangle and two (or more) to untangle if indeed untangling is desired.

Not all broken relationships have to be fixed, but if one that has caused you pain is going to be fixed, it will require humility and respect and trust and confidence to set things in motion – even if all these treasured and intertwined elements were once defiled.