June 23...... The Stone of Compassion.

So I feel a little unsettled with how I ended my post yesterday. Grateful for loving someone sounds wrong. But the truth of it is my dad and I had a crappy life together until he showed up at my door homeless. I spent a lot of years being really, very angry at him. He was a brute, physically, verbally, emotionally. He is narcissistically  disordered. He is a man of his time and generation. He was violent and egocentric. He never gave a shit about anyone but himself really, unless there was something to gain from the other person. He is however, also a boy who survived the burning of his city, the bombing of his grandmother's house in which he lost several relatives, he was a baby who was left with his brother in a playpen for a large part of the day while mother and father went out to work, he is the brother of an alcoholic, and was the husband of one for many years. He is a man who failed at business, marriage and parenting.

Some years ago, I learned how to carry the stone of compassion. This may sound bizarre but I get it .. so I share it this way. The stone of compassion for me was a real blessing. It does not weigh what the stone of anger weighs. It really doesn't. The stone of compassion lets you grow, leaves you room to grow, to be kind to yourself. The stone of anger eats away at you, doesn't leave you any room for much else, least of all yourself.  I was able to learn how to carry the stone of compassion for my mother as well. So important to take the person in the context of their lives. Oh my God, I just had an epiphany - it makes total sense that I am the "type" of therapist I am - systemically oriented - believing and relying on the understanding of context to help people. Wow. I have been able to use compassion not as a way to forget necessarily, and I'm not even sure about forgiving - but truth be told all that isn't necessary once you carry the stone of compassion instead of the stone of anger. The two - anger and compassion - can not coexist. They can't. And yes, it is totally a choice - which stone you choose to carry.

My dad was shaped into being a prick. My mother was shaped into being an alcoholic. It could have been different but it wasn't. I choose the stone of compassion. For this, I am grateful.

and ps .. no we didn't find the wallet .. more on that tomorrow.

Day 28 .. Redux...

All right.. I have to be honest. I wasn't being honest, or my preferred way of putting it, authentic, in my post earlier today. Yes I'm grateful for the contact with the old friend, yes I'm grateful for the dog I had... but at the time of writing I was in a bit of a tizzy because of the state of my dad and the ensuing complications. Truth be told I was not feeling a whole lot of gratitude at the time of writing, which of course makes the post unauthentic. I can't bear that. Perhaps going forward I will say - Oh my I'm having a really tough day - and am not allowing myself to pause and consider what I am grateful for. Or maybe, the other lesson might be, wait till the storm passes before you write. Whatever... here I am for real....

What I am grateful for is the team of people that surround my father and make sure he lives well, with dignity and respect. People who work with the dementia-stricken elderly do some of the hardest work there is to do. Cleaning, caring, guiding, assisting, it never stops. And these dear lost souls, our parents, are so much better off for having these caregivers in their lives. For this I am really very grateful.

Peace to you Daddy.

Day 25 ... Compassion

Today's gratitude has to do with yesterday's events.

I am a negligent daughter. While I do a good job taking care of the money for my dementia-ridden father, I don't visit as much as I should or could. Worse, I don't really feel guilty. I go every couple of weeks, spend a few silent minutes with him - which he seems really happy about, and then I'm off on my merry way. I make sure the Residence and case workers take good care of him, that he has what he needs, that he gets his medical needs met, that his rent is paid on time. Maybe I'm not so negligent.

The relationship with my dad is a complicated one. My dad is a narcissist. He was brutal with me as a kid, physically, mentally, verbally. In my twenties I walked around with clenched teeth, so consumed was I by my anger. I grew up thinking my self stupid, because that's what I was told. I made decisions to accommodate that belief. I was never supported or taken care of. Never protected from my mother. It sucked.

Somewhere along the line, because of another event in my life, I began to learn about compassion. The kind of compassion that Pema Chodron teaches about. She is a Buddhist monk in Nova Scotia. Through learning about compassion, and directing it toward my self and then my father, my anger began to melt away. I learned that the weight of compassion felt much better than the burden of anger. It was a salve, a relief, a better way for me to be.

So yesterday, what was supposed to be a 20 minute visit, turned into a four hour visit. My dad needed taking care of. He had an "accident", didn't seem to know what to do about it so left everything the way it was. It was not nice, required a considerable amount of cleaning and laundering. I had to intervene with the Residence staff. I had to wash my dad, help him shave and brush his teeth.

I am ever grateful for the teaching of compassion. Without that yesterday would have been impossible. I am grateful to have in my heart the capacity and wish, even, to do what I do - to understand it as something I have to do, want to do, can do. It is such an irony to me that I am the one now caring for my father. More importantly, it's a real gift.