For the one who prided herself on getting where she intended – a letting go of the outcome. For the one who joked that she could cope under wet cement – a giving up. Even Heather couldn’t fix it. Heather always demanded more from life than she was given. Giving up, giving in. Not an option. If there was a problem, then by definition there was a solution. No such thing as ‘can’t’. Certainly not accepting: “Go home and wait for your newborn baby to die.” I didn’t – and she didn’t.Blind, deaf, severe cerebral palsy, epilepsy, profound intellectual impairment. “Expect nothing.” “Learn to love her.” “Take each day at a time.” All code for ‘she can’t live’, ‘she won’t live’.

And so began the battle to keep her alive, to pare back the handicaps, to give her what I regarded as her birthright – her humanity. It took eight years of our lives. A battle was waged. Not on the obvious front, although that was also a battle, often daily, a war of wills – hers and mine, mine and her father’s, living and of dying.

There were other children in this story, her brothers. There was a mother’s interrupted life in this story, the mother rendered childless in her devotion.

UNEDITED VERSION HERE

Warning – evocative.
The open wound
The daughter who is not
The one who is instead also needs her mum.
Even more than.
Yet . . .
How dare I not share this mother’s journey?
You may need to know . .
You may know another who does..
I did.
We persevere.
Life moves forwards.
Light – sun it up
Turn on YOUR heart light . .

Bridge
Letting Go . .
Written 19 years ago . . . self to that self.. .
For the one who prided herself on always getting where she had intended, on being able to pull anything out of anywhere – a letting go of the outcome. For the one who joked that she could cope under wet cement – a giving up. Handing over to the ones who guided both of us from beyond this now. Imagine . . .. Even Heather could not *fix* it. She was one who always demanded more from life than was given. She never thought of giving up/in. If a situation presented itself, then by definition, there was a solution – just hidden in this present way of looking at it. Never listening to “No”. Not accepting: “Go home and wait for your newborn to die”.
I as that Heather didn’t – and she didn’t. The battle to keep her alive, to pare back the handicaps, to give her what I regarded as her birth right – her humanity – took eight years. During that time, a battle was waged. Not on the obvious front, although that was also a battle, often daily, of wills – hers and mine, mine and her father’s, of living and of dying . . . .
Finally the realisation that I was not living out the script that all others, as I had also done, assume to be living within. The rules that may have been partially working, no longer applied. To exit this chapter of my life, I had to work out the new set. How to do this, as a suburban mum, in a standard difficult domestic relationship, well entrenched in the mechanisms of daily living and raising children?
Once these were discovered, the game got simpler. Not easier. Not more comfortable/ palatable or as one would script for self, but more workable. Not as others were living. Outside the box of ‘normal’. My own personal matrix.
A major war within me. The letting go of beliefs, of limitations, of desire, of wantings and of knowings: to where I could, just be her mother. Not her advocate, her healer, her co-ordinator of volunteers, therapies and supplements, her brain injury therapist, her support network/major carer, or a consciousness/ fund raiser, but just as her mum. When this finally happened, at the point where the inner mother recognised that she was past it, where she had to quit, where there was no possibility of playing the game as it had been, (and she would give two weeks as a present to be in the present with Skye) – magic movement.
Before this (nearly four years on), maybe being her Mum needed all those hats. Being the mother of a vastly brain injured autistic baby hell-bent on dying from every obscure virus, is not fun. Like Lindy Chamberlain, getting on with the ‘now’ that presented itself. Falling in a heap/ processing inner grief was not going to get Skye better. Was not going to keep her brothers’ lives together. Was not going to co-ordinate the programme, volunteers, or find further answers. Was not going to keep me well and sane enough to keep breast feeding and orchestrating the whole show.
Another major battle – Skye’s will (formidable) pitted against mine (redoubtable). Gradually, the dawning within me, that changes I made created ripples in the fabric of our lives, impacting somehow upon her, thus the ease of eventually knowing that the way to change a situation was to find out what I resisted the most, and to do that/let it happen. Every time I did, major shifts occurred in the area and towards where I had tried to force them. The shortcut. The energy that holds it all in place is always why the ’it’ is happening at all. Focus on the glue, not the bricks.– not moving the actual, but discovering the virtual, that it was set up to break through.
Daily skirmishes – Just as a newfound activity/tiny movement forward was achieved, and I expected/ assumed it, it would be lost. Nothing certain. No points of comfort. Goal-posts in constant motion. Leaving me to explore living in this now moment, as though it were the only one. (Which in fact, it always is).
The moment I realised that how I was dictated how she was, when I realised that I had the power within me to change the outcome of my life, by altering how I felt about/related to/with her, she altered. All I had to do was focus upon my own inner chaos, and transmute this.
Not so simple with a screaming sleep/resistant/needing to be cuddled/rocked baby who would only sleep in the car, and awaken to scream again, night after week after month after year. Not so simple with the one who would catch interesting diseases and nearly die from them. Not easy when so slug-like, defying all images of normality. How does one parent a vegetable? One who recognises mothering attempts with monumental indifference? Who purposely screens out the world, to the extent of controlling the rate of pupil dilatation? Who can hold onto poo for a week, refusing to let it go even when suppositories are used?
Also not so simple with a husband who was locked within his own personal horror of having less (far so) than perfect invade his life. To lose a daughter, and to gain a catastrophe. To lose a wife and to gain an apparently obsessed witch. To have no-one to be there for him. To have to be there for others. To be expected to actually put himself out, to move off the comfortable middle-class orderly base, and extend himself. He had not signed up for this when agreeing to another child.
Where were the friends/relations? Deserted the ship as though this would also wear off onto their own lives.
Life went on. People arrived. Help poured in from the local community. I learnt how to receive. I saw that they came to give, not to me, but to themselves – they all had a story, they all needed to be there. That we were in fact, giving to them, by being receptive. By allowing their gift of themselves. This lessened somewhat the guilt in having up to 50 people scheduled to be in the house, to help, every week. I couldn’t do it/have done it without them.
Maybe it was their sister across the other side of the world, that had a child similarly disabled, on a similar programme, and not being able to help her, needed to help us, as a thank-you to all the others helping her nephew. Maybe an agoraphobic person found us as a safe haven to begin her reentry into the world. Maybe the sister of a damaged sibling, who if born now, may have become more functional with assistance. Maybe someone whose child was miraculously NOT brain injured, against all odds, and in an exercise in gratitude that she were not me – they all came, and all grew.

Time passed.

A gradual and unrelenting sense of urgency began to fuel existence. Originally I felt that it to be the panicked undercurrent of “what if ‘s. . .”The hurry was not that the brain’s developmental timetable running out, but a stemmed from a very different pressure, as that mother was tuned into more than the apparent story-line. She was vaguely aware of the impending major life chapter.

Some wonder why Skye started to be called Kathryn. Those who were in her life at the time, just knew that she was different. Just as I, the mother, knew that there was a fundamental shift in myself, to the point that I was able to continue, whereas the previous one had been saying “Goodbye” to her daughter in the only way she could – by finally being there for her, as a mother.
And in that time of just being there, outside therapizing, just being in the now moment, a shift was allowed to happen. When the desired outcome of ‘Skye better at any cost ’was released, when it was OK for her and I to exist as two units, joined as we were by the bridge I had built, and she had allowed, when there was only us in this world, when later wasn’t a factor, magic happened.
But then, it was a phenomenal shift for her mother to let it go. To accept that maybe this was what Skye was here to do/be. That she (Skye) had achieved far more than she had intended, in this now. That it was time for her to return to wherever she (as a spark of consciousness) had come from. That there was a huge change about to happen.
Faith.
And so it was.
The new one sat on her sleeping mother’s lap, and gently prised open her eyelids. To gain entry into the world of being that she (as Skye) had refused well in the dance of eye contact avoidance that only another parent of an autistic baby may recognise. This was a defining moment this mother’s life. My daughter wanted “IN”. The very first real tottering step towards life.
Not knowing it at the time. I was also not the one I had been. The new ‘me’ had all the energy in the world. And this was focused in a totally different way..
Life continued. Skye, the raging, withdrawn, highly damaged autistic monster was not there. Who was in her place showed signs of wanting me/us. She started to use our hands as tools. She cried when left alone. She NEEDED. I called her now by her given first name. She had finally crossed the bridge that separated her inner hell to our outer one. Not easier, just different.

Life moved on.
Some wonder why she is not living with me – not even in the same country.
I may even share with them that I do not know how she is, and have no intentions of finding out. Why would I revisit that which I can not change? Why would I cause further trauma to either of us? We both recognise the other. This is not a Hollywood ending. Not in this present now.

GLITCHES
Sometimes, the veneer crumbles.

There we all are, in the kitchen of the new house, everything as it should be, the tea prepared, the table set, the very picture of a happy, stable family evening. The four daughters living as the centre of each’s own reality – all wanting and receiving the validation of their own preciousness. One says – “that’s right – Kathryn will be 14 this year” . . . Her cousin Anna does share the birthday – so she may have more of a reason to be reminded of her existence than her sisters.
The offspring of the visiting aunt, the missing beautiful adolescent cousin. The unmentionable odd one. The daughter I did/do not have. The daughter she never could be, has not been even allowed to grace her mother’s fantasies- so deeply entrenched is the inner censure motion to avoid the pain of loss of what had been a lifelong yearning – to have a daughter /an apprentice? Across time . . . .
So never there. . to further cushion the grieving mother, the inner curtain, to never imagine what it would be like to have conversations with that one, to share the girl years, to watch the unfolding of the bud into the rose she would have become. . . . The actual daughter becoming maybe the master/guru of the one who seemed to all on this plane, to be the mother.
Anna’s innocent comment, a decade later, in the very country, where the swap occurred. The mother traveling though the very area, another version of the daughter and herself journeyed together; the mother too exhausted to continue the plan of rescue, of bridging/bringing her out of the hell she fell into within herself. Both of them. The mother giving them together a farewell present, a time of sharing being, without the desired outcome of improvement, of attempting to catch the others up – – a time of just being together in each other’s space. No frenetic programmes, volunteers and therapies – just one with the other.
That memory opened through the years, as though it were yesterday, superimposed upon the cousins’ countenances. Always the mother saddled with the ghost of the one that was, the joy of being totally connected – as few ever experience in even their most intimate connections, – a soul bond that transcended all barriers. Now bereft, the daughter gone to care, the mother supposed to forget, and get on with the present/ . . until some innocuous remark, some stray sentimental phrase/song on the radio, a chance glance of another to her own child – all setting off the inner land-mines.
All prompt her back to this now, with the raw-ness of a new wound, uncovered, as though it were all just yesterday – and where is the etheric gauze and healing ointments? Where are the comforting arms, the soothing voices, as the lost edges flail about seeking the other ??
The floodgates opening at the most unlikely triggers, in the middle of a remarkably able professional and creative life – others forgetting that this one has a past. But at times, there is no future, no present – just the past – still able to be unwrapped and paraded forth.. Unlike another mother whose child may have died, this one lingers in limbo. The forgetting of the heroic measures undertaken to bring that child into this world, to attempt to help her make sense of the world that existed secondarily to the main event in her autistic world.
Others see the mother with her different busy hats on. The rest of the world does its dance to its own tune, oblivious to the inner torment of the unfinished project – not terminated by death, but by circumstance, and an inner recognition of enough being enough, however unpalatable the severance and the consequential inner and outer judgements.
Would I have done it differently? Do I regret the experience? Do “bad” things happen to “good” people?
Was this a ‘bad’ thing? Was I a ‘good’ person? Would the being that came through as Skye been able to move to where she could without the one who was there for her? Did both of them know the consequences of their scheme? I remember saying to those who were very upset about Skye/Kathryn, that how did they know that she wasn’t an aspect of Buddha gaining experience?
Here, in this now, we have one piece of the puzzle of our lives, and the light may not even be shining upon it. How can we judge any of this as other than an adventure in form?

Bridge is the tale of two souls intertwined, a mother and daughter in a battle of wills about whether to live, die or thrive. In 1986, a month after Heather Bruce had given birth to her only daughter, the paediatric neurologist told this new mother what to expect: ‘Blindness, deafness, massive cerebral palsy, massive epilepsy and profound intellectual impairment.’ Their journey began.

Structural bits: My rock, external fades away, banished, bridge, failure, sifting, reminiscing, sacrifice, the other children, sanity, an angel here on Earth, dance partners move on.

Along the way

Never would I have thought I would have gotten my life , traipsed through bundled up in boxes and thrown out.
Yet in the past 3 weeks that is what has happened: I got in ahead f the outrageous stakes – left my life for others to clean up/out!!
How did this happen? Sitting on my bridge . .
Sun at my back, talking to a dear friend in Australia about the writer’s course – out of nowhere – she offered to undo and clear out me from Brisbane..

How does it feel?
Emancipating. Cut loose.
Was only stuff anyway.

All clothes, personal anythings – and endless stationary, bits of notes beginnings of writing – all different journals and pens galore .. . nothing spared . .
Who got what?
Who knows?
Garden and my precious roses there – more will grow.
All my teaching tools? Who knows. .
Who did it does it feel now?
Like a massive load gone = thank you Covid.

Thoughts on homework – June 11th.

This time I may choose to not – all others I have done – last minute – or to do
I think I am up to my gunnels with this already.
If I need to do something I have never done before – I may angst for a minute – then JUST DO IT.
(Out of comfort zone). Loss of sovereignty.

‘New normal’ indeed!

1 – Stuck in kiwiland (all adult life in Australia and have always been my escape from parochialism – is TOO SMALL A COUNTRY TO CONTAIN ME. And can’t leave – nowhere to go when I do . .yet

2 – Making plans for an Aussie teaching tour with no certainty (Covid shutdowns again). Will it be more fares lost in ‘travel bank’?

3 – Lost – all the life I was living in – 4 winds scatter – all in storage in 4 different places. All writing in boxes, texts elsewhere . . Sense of self?

4 – Discharge all groups I have belonged to (expecting any recognition in a tribe). LEAVE being known as ‘an acupuncturist’ forever

5 – Prepare for sale – paint the damned house myself . . .out of favourite house, pack up and disperse.

6- Start back the govt hauranging to get recognition of the parental load being unreasonable – taking off the govt load as being unpaid for advocacy for daughter.

7 – Move into old cottage – we do not fit! In preparation for Australian uncertain teaching tour .

8 – No income. Reset.

9 – Out myself as a brain injury therapist (done).

I watch as my ‘want to conform’/overly responsible (means always to what I think others want/need – not to me) eldest daughter/not safe unless I do fit programme – always so it has been a revelation to watch it running me still. Stephanie Dale – as to the part 9 above – after the evening watching the process of your midwiving budding writers in print – all you said to others (as usual) was totally relevant
When I saw maybe got ‘no time’ – I really am not sure with all in the air yet another is possible -as I am only getting a handle on new dramas the others in points 1-8 are throwing out at me . .
Not excuses – juggling as fast as I can .
And that chapter I hid from myself – I opened that door as a mum who needs that book I have NOT YET written –
What to do about your brain injured child/stuffed future – it is time.
Be it birth injury, vaxx damage, stroke, road accident, coma or any other damn thing – in this case yesterday – premmie baby compromised – WHO knows?
Ah . .
Me .. .

June 9th –

DONE! (and always my way . .) In the interests of being good . .And DOING homework Inviting – who? For coffee? Hmmm . ..

No one excites/interests me here. . Sort of still locked into – all a bit too scared to go out . .. Thinking laterally. . Zoom? But who?? Not lived here for 15 years – just visiting – small country town .. thinking thinking – Wednesday passes. . Thursday – AHA! what can I do to assist?

(The rescuer emerged) AGAIN . . Mothering mothers. .Reaching out to homebirth midwives here – as they could potentially make such a splash with the work I have to hand over. Look up home birth midwives. Ring them all – leave messages, follow up with an email – talk to one – she is just off to a midwives weekly meeting – great – can you let all know – love to chat – send an email with what I have done/can do . .As they say these days. . Crickets .

Leave another message. . Now Sunday .Wondering – WHY would I want to try to stir them up – they will hear ‘I am better then’ and ‘training not prepared to do the job’ . ..and they are right – OK – ignore that. I deviate – plan to go back to Australia.( I now have another student in the group – there I potentially have FREEDOMS there . .).

Read the homework again ..Someone I admire. . No one more than the woman who allows me my life back.. Will she even reply???

HOW DOES SHE DO IT? Patricia – Kathryn’s carer.

AND SHE DID! Wonders. .I see Kathryn rocking in the background – a flashback to my working in a psychopedic hospital in my late teens – a job I would have done for no pay. There is my beloved daughter acting out as being what others see as extraordinarily odd. Making funny noises.. whilst her two mums bond.

We have plenty to catch up on. From there – I wonder – in wonder – HOW can anyone live with Kathryn 24/7 – with no respite – and all the hassle? Says her grateful mother . .and she lives for my daughter. . Email Patricia – Why Patricia?? Kathryn’s new mum . . Over 20 years she has been with her every minute. Me somewhat estranged (self imposed) as the distress of not being able to support them as she is so much more than anyone can imagine.

Tentatively I suggested a Zoom – she hardly ever – can I remember the last time?? Answered the phone? My taking it personally – do I NOT remember that Kathryn’s life dramas fill up every second in every life?

That inner script – I am the one who failed: guilty .. . as usual – pattern – I miss seeing what I have done. Only see that which is not accomplished. . beating myself up – the power of: ‘what if’ . .

WHAT IF?? The MP I had reached out to had mangled the story. What if she had gotten to Patricia prior to me warning her – what damage to undo then?? May have caused a bomb – Plan B is not we need alternative permanent accommodation – which is what she had tasked another to do . . HOW does it come to this?

As with my initial breakthrough – I think to metaphorically as well as literally – throw my daughter and her need for an advocate away. . why me?
What if I died?? She has a dad. Doing the opposite changed that – after 30 years!!! My process . . do not want to as I feel so failed in all I wish for her and Kathryn and what I have not been able to do – single handedly make it all better.

Failed even to go for Welfare Guardianship again – all through 6 weeks – let her go – pretend she is her own boss/cast her aside . Leprechaun on the shoulder – whisper whisper . I go into the Skye publishing room (like a shrine).

I am at peace,.

That project is put to bed enough for me to now rescue myself. . Uncovering the fear/not good enough /failure. . especially in the grief of the world I could not manipulate for her. .macro and micro . .

Together we have discovered a minor win – Patricia with a cash flow. From Kathryn’s dad. Heartened . . .I wonder – what is the govt doing with the respite/day care funds that are allocated and not used? Covid HOW does any parent of these incredibly damaged for life dependents live – through all they do?

SO grateful .

So lucky – I am not now her mother. . .Patricia feels so fortunate to have us to turn to with a problem.

My long lost soul sister – brought together by an errant glitch – profound brain injury and the angel on earth who now lives to be with her.

Thank you Stephanie Dale for setting this homework . .from there I found the right department (Justice) to sort out the Welfare Guardianship, Kathryn’s two mums bonded over the ‘he-done-me-wrong’ ex marriages and what is our beloved daughter’s best interests I felt as though I was not SUCH a hopeless failure and we all get on again . . Loins girded for the next onslaught

Steph’s answer

what an extraordinary encounter, day, prolonged moment, journey … in the interests of being good you excelled … the leprechaun on your shoulder … two mothers … so much I could say, just know the whole of it is received

This is happening backwards from the Writer’s Pilgrimage page

A week
Started off with such good intentions. .
And instead. .
I ACTED
The biggest next resistance (first – opening the wounded mother box and seeing how she had hidden in fixing all others – not herself for the past 30 years) to go was GET OUT OF AUSTRALIA/BRISBANE and CLINIC especially.
Doing it

Has taken over
As with all stuckness I have attended to over these incredible few weeks – there is that voice in head ‘not doing it right’ popping up as that bloody leprechuan in my ear . .
And ups and down of ‘who would want to know’ to reminding myself of the amazing words you read out Stephanie Dale the first week
How dare I not!
And here is no longer. .
Letting others get me gone . .
So very grateful for my life

May 8th

May I say. .
Perserverance (bloody mindedness) furthers.

As a result of being in this class . .
Change is afoot.
I signed up as I knew that I was the blockage.
To not only this book appearing .. . (out of hiding).
Yes – it is time.
Could be seen as being prompted – no other parent really (surely??) needs to go through this hell.
The convenient truth is that jabbing chemicals into us is not the way to health – and is in fact the way to ruin – as evidenced by my story . . .

I knew that so much else in my life was also stuck till I let this out. AND So many movements are now on as I have committed . .

Last night my daughter’s dad (who walked out 30 years ago and has been living the life.. .
Agreed to pay towards the extensive expenses her adoptive family cover.
YAHOOO!!!!!
As we were (1982 Venus)
As she was (around 2006) – as though posing for my wonderful man – her step dad – Duncan . . .

Mother – discovering the central character. .
Mine. Shona
And how she shows up in all the photos (week 2 was delving into all boxes of the past that had been dragged about from country to different houses back to countries and back again – and how she was so very present with all my children – and how she tried. .
And I assumed
And ignored.
So in my own story .
How did this happen?
The roses adventure – yes is coming – and as with the 6 sentences – my process seems as with making babies.
Hidden, there coming and gestated – till it pops out ..

This pilgrimage. .
Concurrently I am. .
Having midwived two of my student teachers of my work through their own maternal adventures, I am downloading as part of the pregnancy project – mine. .
Half way through – and there she is again – mum again . .
And an assumed part of the furniture . .
It seems. .
As we all are. .
Constants –
Thus the ‘who do we admire?’
I could NOT have lived as my mother did – in that monsterously large cold house – the ghost of her life lived through until death . .

I am so very glad I did not live in my mother’s life.
A shocker of self isolation and limitation – self induced.
Why was she in my life?
To be a role model of what I did not want – never ever wanted to even be female to be as she was – and yet – apparently on the surface . .she wanted for nothing – except what mattered.
Acceptance . . .she was still running that programme – unwanted 4th child. All her life – and I continued – unwanted mother. . as the eldest – I put up with as the responsibility gene was rampant – over giving to all . .
Self awareness and self discovery and self love.
Compassion.
My part – to give a no one else was . .
My own daughter – I would not have wanted to be her either.
Both of them – I gave as I saw myself as a sort of ‘Lady Abundance’
A font of replenishable resources. .
From above . .thus
Do Unto Others.

The outcome?
Dad is now contributing $$ for his very damaged adult daughter.
Would not have happened had I not gone past the resistance of looking at my part in this. (expecting to be the Ms Indispensible forever.
Given too much of me already.
Handing over.
Letting go.

Timely reminder?
My resistances are massive.
Yesterday was a different day.

Today I am recycling ‘who cares’ about my contribution?’
Toxic thought that.
Hope you are all bravely sifting through the gifts (no judgement) as they pop up.
Last night I planted a seed.
This morning I watered it.
We shall see. .

And where is Polyanna when you need her?
Roll on tomorrow

AND THEN ..

At my writing post.
A week laid out.
But.
Called to action.

She stumbles in.
A walker
I wonder how is she to get up the steps.
She has to.
Can’t be done in the house

I think – just a quick accident recall etc.
No.
We go through her rapeful past with dad as a toddler. She flits in and out of this here. Relations visit.
I use ‘magic’.
Though to me is life.

We are visited by the murdered great aunt. She who has watched over. I ask why he stopped? She as the 2 year old after months of nightly screaming – no neighbourly intervention . . Slipped out and appeared as the woman she would be and asked why he just did not kill her now?

Sent to live with the sister of the named murdered one – till his healing daughter called her ‘mummy’.

Dragged back to begin again. Roses?
In my mid May cold garden yet.
I pick.
She samples.
The tale of the rose bush she planted over her great aunt’s grave. She is asked to take it away as he – her own tormentor visits.
She does.
Take it home.
Odd smells.
Odd times.
Sensitive 2nd husband knows

Great aunt is safe. She is safe. A rose.

Today – no walking frame, feels like living – comes early (I am still abed finishing off a different edit – and they wait).

Couldn’t wait.
To come back.
Can’t believe. .
Yet it is so.
Today?
She goes to Aztec times to be raped yet again as the priest has his turn before the beating hearts plucked out.

Aliens visit with us first.
Very interested in what I am doing. Many with us.

Onto the steamer with her. Comfort. Body and soul anguish assuaged.
Safe.

How do I?
Is breathing.
All I do is let the flow find its flow.
Grateful is I.

Time variable . .

Depends on the day . .
Best seems to be late at night – fire going .
Theme – freedom and that evening we hear of the rushed loss essentially of human rights in NZ – and today the first of Level 2 – all out spending big – who cares – we are allowed out . . (of lock down)
I digress.
Yesterday- I sat here and wrote on freedom.

Today – what sets me apart/makes me see things the way do – Can’t NOT do it my way .
Thank you

May 12th

Not sure how far this voice inner ‘NOT GOOD ENOUGH’ voice goes back . .Driving this over achieving, over giving, over expectationed life.
The gift of last week was gestation.
Of so many other projects – in tandem . .
Not only was I going through ALL the photos of the 4 kids I birthed – but putting it all in context. Handing back those men’s pasts . .
*First week* – words . .
Failure and sacrifice came through most strongly.
*Week 3* dawns . .
Back to words –
Programme !
OMG! – ran my lfe as I rescued a dying bub from one horror – to get stuck in another . .
You may not know what I mean . .
Doman Delacarto neurological rehabilitation . .
Closed brain injury ‘surgery’ . .
Neuroplasticity – decades before ‘experts’ knew.
So . .
Next day . . . her dad
Keith – contacted and ?? is up to him now.
Even wrote a bit on my daughter’s dad’s story . .

Massive win finally – in someone in govt’s ear for the future .
Seriously – waiting for decades also for this one to fall into place.
.maybe?? 33 years of being my daughter’s advocate whilst $$ flies everywhere except for the humane necessitites of those most vulnerable – with no voice . .
I digress.

A house (40 km up the road) library is unpacked.
3 birth stories shared, filmed and catelogued (incl Skye’s ) – part for the Pregnancy Project I am unfolding as a different teaching venture of the Gentling Way therapy I have developed . .
A new FB page – just happened spontaneously – to out myself.
Roses writing every day – diff version.

Mother’s Day.
Eldest son finally opened up and thanked me for being and how he ‘loved’ me . .
Today . . .
Mentor of my youngest son and Duncan – Stephanie Dale – guard your heart – just found out that Jim from Wainui ended his journey today. .
And I tell myself – not done enough. . .
WHAT??

Mysteries of gestation – we take one step
The road unfolds . .*

May 9th

Process . .
Week 1 – Clearing the space (and facing what comes up).
Week 2 – Setting the space up – photographic journey into the past
Week 3 -Stories likely .. .
Will see – has sparked the way out of yet another conundrum!

May 4th

I have been beating myself up about not following your process. That programme – “I’m not good enough” is rife – those ‘middle circle’ conversations are but distractions. Means that USUALLY if I go my way it is the shortest and for me often the ONLY way to get where I need to be .
This has meant I have had to . . .
Do it . .
And not judge it as being ‘wrong’ – but in fact the only way I can do this.
As with jumping off that bridge – tried so hard for so long to NOT do

Observing the leakage of that process would not allow what was in fact filling up my life as a distraction – rescuing all others – and they need to do it themselves so not necessarily thank me but attacked for it. .
Until

The Pause. (COVID CAUSED)
I get to wake up.
AND
1 – Move INTO this house that we bought 7 years ago and I have only ever visited Duncan in. Now been here x 2 as long (8 weeks ) than have been in it at one time.
So . .
2 – That 2x boxes of photos?
Now in piles to hand over to the men I made – their pasts back. (her 3 brothers)
3 – That set of Skye/Kathryn writings?
All mostly found and accounted for.
(How – had to clear out ALL the furniture in two houses to get to where I could . .)
4 – Felt as though I ran away from it last week – as NO writing – instead I have been ordering.
Catching up with myself – going in time back and yet is allowing me now to be present.
And the future – beckons.
As it was in being Skye’s mum – ‘we only own this now moment’
“what I do with this breath, this thought – will set in motion the next’.
‘If I catastrophize – where does that lead me? (energy follows thought).

So I made my own reality – paying lip service to the apparent reality – physical – yes – then – thirty +years ago two other children to mother – yes – had to stay solvent – AND find out (and fund it) how to fix her – and do it.
And each step has uncovered what needs to happen next in what is in my face – no income from either country = massive outgoings in both.

THE PAUSE . .
For me to come home to me
And at same time I am mentoring – as you are – in my case a group of women healers. .
And their process. .
And the ones to come . .
And the hold up has always been . .

MOI!
Hence – gave myself ‘off’ a weekend – not that you notice with a world shut down – no rhythms of life happening past sun up sun down and constant rain with some dry sunny patches – those are outside and attacking the two sets of grounds I haven’t been in. And undoing boxes of my life waiting for later (now – to be processed.

PLUS – setting out the courses that the students at different levels are on – and negotiating all their stuck spots.
Concurrently – midwiving two of my own grads (hopefully they will end up being teachers of my work – their way) through their own maternal misadventures and getting them to see how those life PhD’s allowed them to be who they are NOW and what they now need – is . . .
Do what you most resist . .

At the same time – there is Heather 3 to deal with – and Heather 4 – and to reclaim all that was – whilst having still a foot still in this here and now. The one no one could have imagined. . that will never be as it was three months ago . .

Parallels –
As was with working on Skye (and I had to take out the Kathryn name) – so far is she buried.
Questions –
How did I?
What allowed me to?
Answer
Driven (in others’ eyes)
Couldn’t NOT do it this way.

Q – Whose way?
Not acceptance but (could have been seen as – by others ) struggle . .
COULD NOT NOT DO IT THIS WAY.
Yet – it always worked – hence when I have said/say in clinic – “you are talking with Kathryn’s mother (see Vaxxed) what it means – I can’t accept the limitations providing as ‘outs’.
Those excuses – I can’t live with.

Tale is all about
Letting Go . .Buddhist tenet – to breathe is to suffer .
To let go . . .??
What I ‘want’ . .
(WHO IS ‘I’?)
What I think
(WHO IS ‘I’?)
What I expect
(WHO IS ‘I’?)
What I even could imagine – as every time I let go – more better than was possible when I was in struggle against what was mode – appeared.
Always.
Still.

Give Up . .
What does it mean to me?
AND – the Heather exercise.
I have written two of the three sentences for the back of this book – will have to find which piece of paper and in which room it now is . .
Happens. .
Comes when it comes and I am not always stuck to a journal dedicated to the task – and there are
DISTRACTIONS .
Skye was my life distraction – as you could argue babies are:
But – this is not the average baby story.
She was incapable of life.
Not really – she was trying SO HARD to opt out – and I kept her here.
(All my fault).
Not sleeping
Not poohing and once we established breastfeeding – not really interested in eating – so . .
Life – survival – always another curve ball.

Not realising that the vaccinations were the trip up – the tipping point – (I just got her to be able to . .)
And then . .

Always when I felt we were ‘there’ I found – as cycling/ walking up an incline/ hill/mountain – what looks like the top was nowhere in sight.
That inner pilgrimage – I keep hiding her (both of them – Skye and H3) as to be immersed – I had to have the room.
UNTIL then – could not live – was one or the other – the solution is – ‘my’ past room.

I have the past – waiting when I open the door – and can shut it and go about the day/week – and it is there – symbolic was needed – when I open it . .

AND . .
So much I have been saying over the past 30+ years – I will need this one day . .
And so it was
This I changed to her not him (he pronouns) and got done up nicely – so here she is . .
Living what you learn .

May 5th

Homework . .
Today’s version of the back of the book . .

“Do not expect anything of her: learn to live each day at a time’’.
So begins the tale of two souls intertwined in a mother/daughter battle – of wills to live or die, or to thrive. Either, both and how ‘life’ is to be even defined: across how many dimensions?

April 26th

I am moving mountains to my end.

The process – to get to the bottom of the heap and take the rug out from under. Let all fall down. Walk away.

It is what is happening. The COVID Pause a gift to me.

The Story is that of Skye’s Mother.

She left at the bridge. Replaced and a new life began . .

This writer’s pilgrimage process is to get this me there – to get this part of ‘the book’ project out.

Letting Go.

I am coaching the parts deeply hidden out as

It Is Time.

FAILURE – second days’ gift of a ‘word’

The pack of cards fell down.

All these words are being fed through in an order. .

Failure in my calling
Failure in what I set out to do?
Failure to pay attention to the story behind the story?
Failure to hear as I midwives others out of their’s?
Failure – (and the inherent judgement – loss of movement) is the the card that holds this life (and her’s and all others in the story) – from movement – so I shall shatter it all.

Into . . not stuck.
Flowing through us all
Currents of

Love
Joy
Spontaneity

Stephanie Dale‘s words

How dare you be the judge?
How dare I NOT let this out?

So many may need someone who has gone further into this morass to be led, as a hand through the mist – into the unknown.

Common is not the path taken.

Failure in WHOSE eyes – as a mother?
Failure to the Heather 3 she was. Goal – seen through the personality eyes as to fix – to rescue .
Word of yesterday.

RESCUE
Rescue who.
From what?

Skye as the master – leading into . .
Self and what it meant to be . .
Unconditional.
Only way to touch her.
Only way to elicit change.
Only way to be alive myself . .

Every breath all there is.
All I had in each moment – the next was decided by where I held my attention – to the prognosis (blind, deaf, massively epileptic, and contorted with cerebral palsy with profound intellectual impairment – ‘live each day at a time’ – ‘never expect anything of her’ – medical code for she will die soon.

Not on that mother’s watch.

What if she didn’t die?
What if she stayed a slug insensate and screaming?

Would I want to come through and be left in that mess?

Why did she come to me?

To the neighbour – or most anyone else = she would be left to the ‘judge’ decision’.

BUT – not being a follower but an outlier, only ever able to do life my way – she was silly enough to lob into my womb – she would be taken through the path this one felt was to be.

Loving her through the horror, the terror, the rage and the fury that was the one in such a helpless incapacitated body.

No – I would not leave her to die.

She tried.

I stopped her.

Over and over and over. . .

Allied – the battle – no sleep – and eventual with Satan – for her soul.

Such is this tale – not the common path.

FAILURE as whoever thought she could change the fate of another. LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

Was the title I was to call it as I came out the ‘other’ side. When she was three years old – I realised that she would never be ‘normal’. What was the next goal?? And what was I to do with that? Could I live with this? Failing her?
AS if I knew what the story was even?

It was (now I wonder) for her – all for her.

Yes – I wanted MY life back – but this WAS my life . .

The instant I ‘got’ that she was massively brain injured from whatever she got from my body – back then at the Royal Children’s Hospital in early December 86 when I felt the mantle of being in a subset – of parents whose kids were not and never would be seen as human’.

A company I had never expected to join.

Previously a helper of . .

Having been in the role of trainer on a huge psychopaedic institution in NZ as a choice – would have been in that job unpaid – and here I was ..

Leading another out of hell into a supposedly better place – being conscious in the ‘world’ others judge to be real.

Standing on the bridge of the Shotover River.
NOT jumping – as I had stopped myself killing me – and her – as a release from this – for the time we had had so far (3 years).

AND . .
That Heather was gone when the river came.
AND that Skye was able to go too. Departed. .
Contract complete.
Kathryn Skye arrived.
Briefly . .}
A bridge again ..

Continuation – the gift of a word.
And what deluge it opens. .
From Responsibility to
Blame to
Worth.
Just like that – much unpacking – and vast AHA as I return to what is mine and hand back what is not.1

Stephanie Dale Just like that. It’s full and rich. Love the image of leading others through the mist. As I mentioned previously, keep track of the words – continuation, failure, etc. wonderful to see the writing Heather , the story spilling over.

How did we get to here?

Why is Heather different?

I came into acupuncture via maternity. The year before I had moved to Australia. Whilst it was intended to be a short break to visit my dad’s mother, it was on a one way ticket. I met my first husband – oddly – both of us momentarily in Sydney at a bus stop. This resulted in me living as a ‘hippy’ in a three sided shed in a derelict banana plantation, with no toilet, electricity, phones, water besides a trickle in the creek and a mosquito larvae filled tank.

He was a health nut having received a catastrophic head injury as a teenager in a car accident, now wanting to live better. He was also a very bad asthmatic who had spent his life in and out of hospital, starting as a baby afflicted with horrendous eczema. The only real relief he felt was with weekly acupuncture.

I did not want this for our baby son. He had happened along, i spite of my personal belief that the world was doomed through overpopulation. Deciding to not have children, this maternal complication shaped the rest of this life. In his sixth week of life I found myself in an acupuncture class. Made to happen by my hitchhiking up and down the east coast of Australia weekly, bub on my front, nappies and texts on my back..

The acupuncture course began initially with guest lecturers from Sydney (Acupuncture Colleges Australia, interspersed with our usual lecturer. There was a power play until our initial eclectic energy teacher (ley lines, auras, energy fields in general) was moved on. The next two and half years were flavoured by reality as seen by a pragmatic chiropractor.

I found out later that there are many ways of learning, teaching and practicing acupuncture most are Chinese inspired. We had a dedicated team of healers who were imparting what worked in our culture, and our times. Back to acupuncture. I lived to go to lessons.

Someone was turning my lights on upstairs. I seemed to hear what others didn’t. I made connections which were maybe only there for me. I watched in awe as my teacher altered lives. His clinical stories made a different sense of life for me.

Bronchiolitis
Of course I thiht hat she was dying . .everythng amplified and teh worst case possible instantly was Skye’s life. Looking back – vaccine o=afereffect? Not ableto prov-cess Z=zinc seemsmost likely and all nutrients misssng after my brush with vaccine damafge mu=yself from eth MMT R jab to allow her existence – her dad refused to thikn of asecnd yunless I was ‘protected’ so scared he was of have g a bub not perfect – especially freaked out about brain injury. Thus when jer brteher was still being breastfed -(what did I knwo – we all thihghthis wasbenign) I rolled uo by sleev e and took teh jab.
Soon after – chronic fatigue and increadible carpal tunnel – an da massive inability to functio – nappy pins were so hard. .holding baby – same.
From now Isee what iI did ito both of u s(hime and mu-yself) and what lay in wat for teh next pregnact and baby.
Then I thihght I was ogimnhg towarsds diabete s- and yet was unders so much stress from teh mi=arrriage – I ut it dnw to ‘getn wth it and stop coplaining ‘ as the job at hand was making/rearing my chldren.

Bronchiolitis is a chest condition that causes breathing problems in babies. It’s catching, so wash your hands before and after handling baby.

Key points

1. Bronchiolitis is a common illness affecting the lungs that causes breathing problems in babies.
2. Bronchiolitis is catching (contagious) so wash your hands before and after handling baby.
3. Breastfeeding and a smokefree environment give the best protection against bronchiolitis.
4. Bronchiolitis is usually a mild illness. Babies with bronchiolitis can usually stay at home. Some sicker babies need to go to hospital.
5. There is no specific medicine for bronchiolitis.
6. If your baby with bronchiolitis is under 3 months old, you should always see a doctor.

What is bronchiolitis?

Bronchiolitis is a common illness. A virus is usually the cause. There are many types of viruses that can cause the illness. The most common are RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and rhinovirus.

Bronchiolitis affects the smallest airways (called bronchioles) throughout the lungs.

Can you catch bronchiolitis?

Yes, bronchiolitis is very easy to catch – it can spread easily between children or from adults to children. 

It is most common in winter and spring.

What puts my child at risk of getting bronchiolitis?

• Bronchiolitis usually affects babies in their first year of life.
• It commonly occurs between 3 and 6 months of age.
• Babies who were born prematurely are more at risk of severe bronchiolitis.
• Babies who already have heart or lung disease are at high risk of severe bronchiolitis.
• Babies who are around people who smoke are more likely to get bronchiolitis.

What are the signs and symptoms of bronchiolitis?

Bronchiolitis can start as a cold, with a runny nose.

Babies with bronchiolitis:

• may have a fever
• start to cough
• breathe fast
• put a lot of extra effort into breathing
• have noisy breathing (wheeze).

The second or third day of the chesty part of the illness is usually the worst.

Bronchiolitis can last for several days. The cough often lasts for 10 to 14 days but it may last as long as a month.

When should I seek help for bronchiolitis?

When do I need to see a doctor?

You should see your family doctor or go to an after-hours medical centre urgently if your baby:

• is under 3 months old
• is breathing fast, has noisy breathing and is having to use extra effort to breathe
• looks pale and unwell
• is taking less than half of their normal feeds
• is vomiting
• has not wet a nappy for 6 hours.

You should also see a doctor if you are worried about your baby.

Even if you’ve already seen your doctor, if your baby’s breathing difficulties get worse or if you are worried, take your baby back for checking.

When should I dial 111?

Dial 111 within New Zealand (use the appropriate emergency number in other countries) and ask for urgent medical help if your child:

• has blue lips and tongue
• has severe difficulty breathing
• is becoming very sleepy and not easy to wake up
• is very pale
• is floppy
• has periods of irregular breathing or pauses in breathing.

What is the treatment for bronchiolitis?

Most babies get better by themselves

Most babies with bronchiolitis get better by themselves without any special medical treatment.

• A virus causes bronchiolitis so antibiotics do not help or cure it.
• Asthma puffers or inhalers don’t help babies with bronchiolitis.
• Using blue reliever asthma puffers or inhalers in babies less than 6 months of age may make their breathing worse.
• Steroid medicine by mouth or inhaler does not help babies with bronchiolitis.
• In babies over 12 months of age, it may be hard to tell if the problem is bronchiolitis or asthma – your doctor may try asthma puffers or inhalers.

What happened?

The medicos can only ever say about what happened to Kathryn as ‘we don’t know’
So me being me – went looking and this is what I found . .

Not politically correct . . .
A potted history of my family history – perhaps stop and think about your own.
I now know too much . .

So (too) much . .

https://www.periscope.tv/teamvaxxed/1mrxmmXgjaLxy

Eventually I started looking through all Dr Suzanne Humphries was posting – and this is after my own researching over the decades . .

Neonatal

What was I thinking letting anyone near my precious baby?
NO vaccines are safe and non are indicated when you are breastfeeding – as I was  . .
And never when immuno-compromised – as she was.
And incidentally – ALL of my kids were jaundiced – well – that in the action of Vit K that I did not even know as given up and what is in that?

Aluminium?
Poly sorbate 80 (causes infertility in rats – and they make heir own Vit C to detoxify their lives) .
NEVER a study of vaccinated versus unvaccinated ..

https://www.periscope.tv/teamvaxxed/1OdJroQLnMvxX

 

 

2005 

I started Kathryn on the ncd liquid activated zeolites

2007

I started Kathryn on a Glutathione accelerator

2015 

I went down the rabbit hole.
#hearthiswell

2016

I started my waking up.

Vaxxed happened

What was said about this

2017 

The Vaxxed bus parents stories. .
N of 1 Vaxxed versus Unvaxxed children one family . .
This is also the Vitamin K – Why do we think nature gets it wrong?
Why not let nature birth?
Why not let our Jing unfold as it is to do?
Not interfered with?

All that happened to me and Kathryn Skye and brothers is explainable if you yourself look at the vaccine package inserts. Informed consent – not belligerent medical bullying and punitive Govt actions if you do not just trust. .
I trusted.

I am an ex vaccinating parent

This is the pro life /life affirming
I ‘won’ a lottery that a lot of parents have – when /if we stop and investigate – not believe what the orthodox medical people say and tell us to do . .

God help the Aussie kids and future . . as when all are messed with. .

What do we do then?
Not all parents are inquisitive – stroppy kiwi acu-mums as I was/am natural health care thinkers. .
What to do?
Listen to all of we ex vaccinating parents – do you want what we have?
Measles would have been there and gone
Stuffed for life is stuffed for life.
Children are not supposed to be ill – ever.

NOT OK

This mother has tried so hard to only present the beautiful shots.
These may be the only ones that exist

Little girl lost . .

1994 – About 7 years old
One of the few photos that exist where she is not sucking her thumb.
Passing for normal – except for the small head.
I suspect she was totally present and being absolutely still as she observed life around her.

 

March 2015 – a bush walking Kathryn.

 

 

 

 

Kathryn’s amazing ‘foster’ family in NZ.
(Where is she? At head of table in the blue clothes.

 

January 2015 – I gave her some acupuncture – and she LET ME!!!

 

 

 

Usual look – is so upsetting knowing that she was so ‘with it’ pre MMR . .

 

Kathryn with presents – December 2016

 

 

 

2016 (30 years old)
Looking SO MUCH like her dad and brother
Decades of thumb sucking.

Teeth all forwards as she has sucked so proficiently – all her life  ..
Unusual to be looking at the camera . .

 

 

You decide where and how to please . . .
We can all drop wining and just be – at least for one minute in every day . . .

Here is the text of an email that was going around recently:

Two Choices

What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway.

My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its Dedicated staff, he offered a question:

‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.’

Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.

Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’

I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father Ialso understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate,
The pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. 

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first!

Run to first!’

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. 

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third!

Shay, run to third!’

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:

We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate.

The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the ‘appropriate’ ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘natural order of things.’

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.

You now have two choices:

1. Delete

2. Forward

May your day, be a Shay Day.

What is so dreadful about having a massively brain injured daughter?

Seeing her as such, rather than as the whole spirit, who has come here to grow, to teach through example, and through the richness of experience that would have otherwise passed me by.

What is so terrible about being in the spot you personally currently wish you weren’t in?

Seeing it as awful, dreadful, and languishing in the experience, rather than looking at it from a different angle, and cleaning out all those corners that you have hidden from yourself.  Even if they are not the ‘right’ ones to sort out the current situation, they won’t be there to be triggered into action another day, by another incident.

Gathering together people with like belief systems to shore up your position is not likely to do more than make you feel more vindicated in where you stand, and less able to move out of where it is that you are stuck in.

Having Skye in my life touched all those who experienced us.  Hopefully if for no other reason, than a guilty gratitude that it was me walking this path, and not them.  Little did anyone know, that it was me that felt so very grateful, that I had been given the opportunity to see past ‘normal’, and out beyond.

 

 

 

 

At some point into the ‘rescue’ mission, I realised that my original timespan of three years was not going to be met.  Not ‘normal’ in three years.  The dawning of the realisation that possibly never ‘normal’.  The final acceptance of her perfection, as my perfect daughter.  Not like anyone else’s, as I was not anyone else.  I was living a different life, not always necessarily pleasant or calm for my personality and earthly desires.

Skye often went on what I called her ‘integrative holidays from life”.  Meaning – she is taking time out to decide whether to keep on going, or to opt out.  Usually she did this in a dramatic way.  Stopping eating altogether.  Radically ill.  On a drip in hospital.  Coasting in neutral gear, hibernation mode – very difficult to observe, as her mother holding a desired outcome of well and “normal”.

After each of these, she changed.  Physically, as a naturopath I could watch her changes in a  detached diagnostic manner.   Her irises gradually went from black, through very, very dark brown, to where I could finally see the immense number of nerve rings.  The naturopathic concepts of going back through ‘disease’ seemed to be so if we looked at the progression in her eyes.  She gradually became less autistic. Very slowly.

Her Mother’s Story

I started giving her on powdered Chinese herbs in adult quantities., three times daily, mixed with ripe banana for palatability.  She had to have this to eat.  Thankfully she was obsessed with eating. The previous dance of attempting to align normal body functions became less intense as they worked their magic.  There became a very gradual “un-misting of her consciousness”.  Slowly a spark of possibly someone present looking out through her eyes.  The dawning of more than blankness in her expression.  An awakening.  An occasional reprieve from the chaos and the horror of the unusual that had re-framed our new parameters of ‘normal’, in living with her.

I learnt to watch her suffering, her misery, her frustration, her anger, her terror, her withdrawal, and her incredibly tentative glimpses of reaching out, of opening her barriers, her attempts enough to try again – at her speed.  It was her journey.  Her path.

I had no idea what it was that she had to shift through, before she could get to where everyone else took as a right, as a part of being human.  I did find that I could guide, I could support, but that I could not force the process.  Where I wanted her to go, what I wanted her to be was not necessarily where she WAS to be.

I could then draw a parallel in my old life (at that point there I was early thirties) as a teacher and practitioner of acupuncture.  As I had learnt through my life to date, the easiest path is often the one that looked the hardest.  That which I resisted the most usually ended up being the answer to many apparent problems.  That by stopping and seeing that which I would expend the greatest amount of energy avoiding, was often the short cut. If I just had the wit to see.

In this present life, when people walk in my door wanting me to rid them of some pesky problem, to ‘fix’ something that feels uncomfortable, I often wonder if they really know just what it is that they may also move, if they allow themselves the space, like I learnt to with my daugher.

To see that more is often achieved by allowing the dis-ease, the discomfort and the pain attached to a belief system, to remain – to change the focus and instead – to let go of the belief system.  To work on the ‘self’ that allows the ‘problem’ to be there, rather than be forever distracted by the results of self eating, drinking, being who self thinks self is.