Good evening, guardian angels. I’ve been troubled in the last few days with the thought that Mom is planning to contact D to tell him about the things she is unhappy about with him. He is a volatile person and I’m concerned for her safety. I feel it is better for our family to minimize contact with him. How can I best relate to her on this issue?There are many ways that you can relate to your mother with respect to this issue, but all of them have the primary behaviors of love, compassion, understanding, patience and forgiveness.
Let us look first at forgiveness. This is one reason your mother would like to approach D. She feels that if she speaks her heart to him and has an open dialog with him about the things that have been troubling her, she will find a way to forgive him for what she perceives to have been his transgressions with L and with your family during L’s time of passing.
This is a difficult area to tread because D’s mindset is distinctly different from your mother’s. D’s thought about your family is that you robbed him of the money he felt was rightly his. He thinks L robbed him of this by virtue of leaving him in her death. And your family he feels robbed him because of L’s will, which left some items of expense to your children. This is only in his mind because he thinks from the perspective of how the events of L’s passing affect him personally. Because he is a man with addictions of many sorts, he is in a survival mode. He is not thinking rationally and he is not thinking compassionately but rather he is thinking from the perspective of a fighter, with those he encounters in life being symbols of his own internal angry energy, but he does not understand that it is his own anger at himself that he fights with. So he places the face of anger on others, and all others he sees as foes.
So if your mother is to speak of unresolved issues with D, this could incite within him the feelings of dealing with a foe, with an adversary, with someone who wishes to “do him in” in some way.
It is possible that if your mother can speak words that will placate D, he will be calm enough to listen to what she has to say. But because of his depression and because of the physical ailments that he has incurred in recent months, it will likely not be possible for him to communicate with her on any level that will be meaningful in the context that she would like.
Now, your mother, too, is feeling a great deal of sadness in the parting of her daughter. When someone we love dies, there is often the feeling in the heart that we have been abandoned, that our source of love is taken from us, or that we have been rejected in some way. Maybe we believe we could have shared more love with the departed and we judge ourselves for that. These are undercurrents of emotion but that does not mean that they are not real. Unacknowledged emotions can be very real and can have a big impact in our life.
But if we can see those undercurrents more clearly, we can understand what our truest need is, which is to attune our thinking to the thinking of love and forgiveness. We must forgive ourselves for thinking in ways that do not necessarily affirm the love within us. We must forgive others for not affirming their own love, or our love for them.
If we can forgive ourselves for the adversarial feelings that we have, and let go of our need to confront ourselves or others, then we can have a gentle heart that is not burdened with anger or resentment or unresolved issues.
You see, there really are no unresolved issues when we can look at our own selves with total compassion and love, and say I love me for who I am. My ego, my fears hold no sway over me. And there is no power that anyone lords over me because I am infinitely powerful and infinitely loving; my love IS my power, and I am free to express it in all that I am and in all that I do. I am free and I am worthy of being happy.
So we must look at our own selves whenever we feel “unfinished business” with another person, and set our own heart free before we communicate with another. This clears the canvas for a productive dialog, if a dialog is to be had.
Now, your mother would like to entertain a dialog with D. But D is severely depressed and he is in a survival mode so likely he will not be able to speak much with your mother. But he will be able to sense her emotion, and if there is any emotion of intensity, he will feel this and he will react on the level of a survivalist. He will want to swiftly remove any perceived threat to his survival. When we are in survival mode, all threats are survival threats.
So it may not be the most prudent action at this time to speak with D. Perhaps when D comes out of his fog somewhat there will be an opportunity – one that comes naturally out of a chance encounter – and this could incline both parties to speak more openly. But at this time an open dialog is not likely to produce the results that your mother seeks.
Still, there are many strategies that your mother can employ to help her better deal with the heavy heartedness that she has about the death of her daughter. She can speak with your family about how she feels. Your family is the source of love that your mother knows best in this world. Her children bring her the greatest love that she knows, and to connect with them and to share the burden of negative emotion that she feels about D – this would be productive. But your mother feels that it would burden her family to know of her adverse feelings. She feels that it would not be appropriate to saddle the family with these feelings.
And yet the family would want her to share the burdens of her heart because of your and their love for her. Your love as a family is what she truly seeks, and this can be made apparent to her and available to her. Perhaps you could organize an event where the family is present and where there can be some tame and gentle discussion of some of these feelings. To nurture your mother with the love that is deep within you is the healing that could do most to help her at this time.
When a mother loses a child, this can leave the deepest scar within the soul of man. To lose a child is to lose a piece of the heart if we do not accept that the departed one made the choice to leave so that a new life could be begun. You see, there is never an event in our lives, not even death, that we did not choose with total precision and total intention. Your sister L had the full intention of beginning a new life and departing this last one as she did. She chose her manner of parting and she chose it well. It would leave your family with the opportunity, a golden opportunity, to heal the wounds that had been festering for years. L had finished her work with the family, but she gave you an exquisite gift in her parting, and that gift was opportunity.
Now, you and your family have recognized this opportunity and to some degree you have acted upon it. In other ways, though, you have resumed patterns that L and all of you truly wish to change. So here now is an opportunity to honor your true wishes to change the energy that was within your midst, and to make it something different.
Your mother is the center of your family. It was from her body that you grew and from her breast that you began your nourishment in this world. Her breast, as an extension of her heart energy, is the symbol of the love that guides you in life and that she has wished for each of you. Your mother’s love is great, truly great, and this is the love that you may return to her in these moments when her heart is still heavy about the loss of her daughter, her firstborn daughter. She feels guilt somewhat for what L experienced in life, and she wears this guilt on a deep level. You can help her let go of this guilt by helping her understand that L chose her path in life and L is still learning, impactfully, about the lessons she chose to share with your mother. There is no guilt and there is no blame that either should place on the other. There were only roles to play and lessons to be learned.
To focus on the lessons is to feel the hopefulness of change. There is no blame. There is only learning and moving forward.
So now is the time for your family to move forward with this lesson of unconditional love and change. Change is the biggest blessing because you all are still in this life together. You may share the bounteous joys of change with each other, and be proud that you choose to change while you have the opportunity. Not that opportunity ever dies; it does not. Each and every moment is an opportunity to change. But to honor L’s gift of love and life through the passing of her life is to recognize and act upon her message of love as it was evident in these elements. This is to say that she challenged you, through her death, to bring love back to your family and to accept one another. She asked this of you and she still believes it is possible. She has not forgotten you and she is a part of your world and your lives evermore, even as you may not see her physical presence. She is with you in spirit and she gives you her love. Again, her love and the opportunity it imparts is your gift should you choose to accept it.
Love your mother and have compassion for the sadness and the mourning she feels particularly as L’s mother. L came from her womb and this established a unique bond, although each member of your family had a unique bond with L and this is precious and to be honored. But the bond between mother and daughter was forged with special intention, and it is this intention that your mother is looking at with deep introspection. You can help her understand it and appreciate it by just reminding her how much you love her and appreciate her presence, her loving presence in your life and your world.
Your moment of power is now. Share your love; forgive each other and your own selves; have patience with one another in your changes; bring love and hope to each other even as you let go, piece by piece, of the resentments that may be lingering; and know that by sharing love with each other that you truly give it to yourself. There is no separation between your love and the love that the Creator imbued you with. Your love is infinite and all is within you to draw upon at this time of need.
Your father, your brothers, and your extended family share a bond of love that is deep and age-old. Honor it and give it the life breath that it deserves. You are here on earth to share and to be loving with one another even as you continue on your unique paths of learning. L led the way in many respects on your many paths of learning. In her death, she followed this pattern of leadership.
Honor the pattern of learning, honor L’s death and the gift she gave: forgive, love, and be happy. She wanted this of you and she prays for it still in her new and happy life. She is ever the example of a path to follow if you see the truth of her spirit energy. She guides and she gives. Now guide each other and give the love that is ever within your selves.
Be well. Be blessed with all good things in life.
