Tag Archives: relationships

Joy vs Sorrow

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Yesterday I encountered both joy and sorrow, not personally, but via social media.

The first story was about the death, on Mother’s Day, of Lauren Davis, the beautiful twenty-four old daughter of a well known media personality, Erin Davis, co-host of the Toronto radio station CHFI morning show. The tragic details are unknown at this time but the news is definitely one of sorrow…deep, deep sorrow.

The second story is about love. It’s about a couple who lived in Ottawa, dated for four years in their teenage years, drifted apart, each married other people, and became widowed in recent years. Happenstance caused them to reunite in Ottawa and rekindle the old flame. Today they are eighty-two and eighty-four years of age and planning to marry in June of this year. This is a story of joy…deep, deep joy.

These stories touch me deeply. I feel the sorrow of a mother losing her daughter to death; it breaks my heart. I also feel the bliss of the couple reunited after sixty-five years; it fills my heart with joy.

Joy and sorrow…each capable of filling the soul with heartfelt emotions…each capable of holding the heart captive…each a part of life…joy and sorrow.

Undying Love

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Last December I wrote about visiting a couple in their eighties whose love was as strong then as when they were first married sixty-one years ago. Wilda had been quite ill for a long time, and sadly passed away yesterday, but their love will never die.

GRIEVE NOT FOR ME

Grieve not for me though I am gone

For I am with you still

God grant you strength to carry on

And understand His will.

A soft tear shed from time to time

Will ease your sorrowed mind

But live your life as fully

As you helped me live mine.

Time will heal the hurting heart

Faith will see you through

There’s still a life for you to live

With courage I leave you.

Remember me with thoughts of peace

Live each day with your heart

Grieve not for me for though I’m gone

We’re never far apart.

©1981 Patricia Ann Boyes

A Definition of Togetherness

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I love quotes, especially when they pertain to real life situations. This one by Kahlil Gibran from his book, “The Prophet”, is one of my favourites. A short form of it is “let there be spaces in your togetherness, for the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow”. It is a lovely reminder to allow each other room to grow in a relationship. I have enjoyed the writings of this author for many years, especially “The Prophet”.

Kahlil Gibran > Quotes > Quotable Quote

Kahlil Gibran

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Beautiful!

Can Wanting Make It So?

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You have to want to move beyond the circumstances of your situation. I don’t know who said or wrote it, but this sentence came to me at a time in my life when I was blaming circumstances for my situation at the time. Until facing the willingness to move beyond the circumstances, the situation remained the same. At that time it was a broken marriage.

Other people have difficulty with developing their faith, and stay stuck in that situation because of circumstances that limit their ability to believe. Realizing that the wanting to move beyond is the answer, opens the door to actually moving on.

Still others stay stuck in unsatisfying relationships because the circumstances keep them from wanting to move on.

Some people are forever in a negative financial position because of the fear of facing the first steps of whatever it would take to change that situation.

Wanting to move beyond the circumstances of any situation is the key to moving beyond. We have to want the outcome of a changed situation enough to move beyond the circumstances.

This has been one of the best pieces of advice to enter my life because it made me stop and think about how sometimes really wanting something can be a good thing.

Rebooting Relationships

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Dissension depletes my energy level. Somewhere in one of my self-reflections I admitted to disliking dissension, confrontation, petty peevishness, pessimism and poop scooping. (The only doggie bag I carry is from a restaurant!)

At times in 2014 all of the above (except the doggie thing) cropped up in my life to the detriment of some of my relationships. Some were remedied but one lingered on until today, when I decided it was not going to accompany me into a brand new year if I could help it.

And so I rebooted a relationship. It was frosty at first and I was tempted to abort the whole thing, but perseverence is one of my strengths and what could have been a three minute phone flop turned into an hour-long healing conversation.

Romans 12:18 says If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone.

Rebooting relationships is a good thing if it is possible, as far as it depends on you.

Seventy Times Seven

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Today I am going to post a full chapter from my now published book, My Precious Life.  It can be found at Amazon.com, Amazon.Ca, Westbow Press, and many other online book stores. As well, copies will be available through me for residents of Ontario, and some other provinces. And now, Seventy Times Seven:

A Lesson in Forgiveness

The anger I carried inside was making me sick. It felt like a grapefruit-size growth taking up precious space in my body, threatening to annihilate me, and it was directed at my husband. We had recently separated, and it was not amicable. Bill’s verbal abusiveness and alcohol dependence had taken its toll on our twenty-one year marriage.

One day, my sister came to visit. She knew about the separation, but did not know the details. I had shared these with no one. Eyeing me over the rim of her coffee cup, Mary bluntly said, “Patsy, you look very unhappy.” Astute observation, I thought. Suddenly, I was spilling over with words of rage, anger, hate and hurt; all the emotions that made up that grapefruit inside me.

“I hate him so much it’s making me sick,” I told her.

“Have you prayed about it?” Mary asked.

“No,” I admitted, “I haven’t.”

It was food for thought, and I chewed on it for several days before finally crying out to God, “Please help me to stop hating him!” But the feeling was still there. I prayed to be released from the agony of negative emotions my life had become. You need to go to church. It was a pop-up thought out of the blue. I remembered the quaint little church one of our daughters had been married in. It reminded me of a small country church from my childhood.

One Sunday morning found me sitting in a sun-bathed pew, listening to a sermon on a part of The Lord’s Prayer; a prayer I had memorized since my high-school days.

Give us this day our daily bread, was this week’s message. The pastor had been giving a series of sermons on this popular prayer, and I wished I had heard the previous messages. It was comforting being in the hushed sanctuary, hearing the sermon, and listening to hymns and prayers, but when I left, my grapefruit was still with me. The following Sunday, the sermon was on forgiveness.

“Holding hatred and anger towards others can make us sick,” Rev. MacNeill said. “We have to learn to forgive.”

He quoted a scripture in which Jesus told his disciple, Peter, he must forgive, not only seven times, but seventy times seven. I left the church with those words reeling around in my head. My new prayer was, God, please help me to forgive, seventy times seven. It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually the hate began to dissolve, and the grapefruit with it.

I continued going to church, and found solace there week after week. The love I had allowed to be smothered began to resurface, and life became liveable again. One day, Bill phoned to rant and rave about something real, or imagined, as was his custom. I stayed silent until the tirade was over.

“Pat, are you there?” he yelled.

“I am,” I said, “and I love you.”

Where did those words come from? His incredulous, “What?” prompted my next words.

“I love you, Bill, but not in a romantic way. I love you seventy times seven.”

I had found that forgiveness and love went hand in hand.

Thereafter, communication was more reasonable, and in the end we became friends, and remained so until his dying day many years later.

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21,22)

He Says – She Says

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When a friend confided in me that she was at the end of her rope with her husband’s negativity, it prompted me to write the following:

He could have enjoyed their journey.
It would have been easy.
But he had closed the door on his mind.
She tried to pry it open just a little, to get a positive thought into his negative world.

He believes in God but doesn’t know that God believes in him.
It’s such a good thing to know.

She loves to sing and implores him to join her in song.
He says, “I can’t sing.”

She loves to watch the setting sun.
He says it will ruin her eyes.

She loves to engage in lively or quiet conversation.
He says she talks too much.

She tries to get him to think happy thoughts.
“Just try it,” she says, “open your mind and let some sun thoughts in.”

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” he says.
But would he?

“Let’s go for a nice long walk,” she says.
“A short one will do,” he says.

Strolling down a tree-lined street she spots wispy, white clouds drifting across a deep blue sky.
He sees the trash cans a neighbour forgot to put away.

She hears birdsong coming from the treetops.
He hears the roar of a mower scalping another neighbor’s lawn.

She smells the fragrance of the fresh mown grass.
He holds his nose. “Damn fumes.”

She says, “Let’s go for ice cream cones.”
He says, “Let’s go home before it rains.”

Together they could have enjoyed life’s journey.
It would have been easy.
He chose to stay in his closed mind.
She chose to walk alone.

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 22:17)

A Letter of Love

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Thank you my child, for being the person you are.

To know you is to know a sensitive, caring, loving and loyal young being. When you entered this world you were born to be a blessing to all who would know you. You were born to love, to learn, to teach, to share, to be you in all the ways that being you is possible.

As life is lived there are lessons to learn. First you learn to walk and talk. It seems to take forever, and after stumbling and stammering countless times, you succeed. You are now free to pursue other areas of this wonderful journey of life. Soon you begin to discover yourself. After accomplishing walking and talking you find yourself being taught what is generally known as discipline. Some refer to it as being ‘picked on’. Discipline is a very important part of life’s lessons. Without it you wonder what is expected of you by your peers, yourself, figures of authority, and the world in general. Hopefully it is very early in life that most of us learn this most important lesson. You did and you accepted the responsibility that goes with it.

Now you can walk, talk, think, feel, learn, discern and enjoy being the wonderful person you were born to be.

Then it happens.Your world as you know it is suddenly distorted by the views and actions taken by the special people in your life. The people you have loved all your life.

Well, child, these people also learned how to walk, talk, think, feel, learn and discern, and now it appears to you that they seem to have forgotten the real meaning of all these lessons.

We learn to walk through life with those in our lives.

We learn to talk and communicate with those in our lives.

We learn to think about life and those in our lives.

We learn to know our feelings, and to think of the feelings of others.

We learn to tell the difference between living for ourselves and having consideration for others.

We continue to learn by keeping our minds open to all these things, allowing us to discern between what we expect our lives to be like and what our lives are really like.

Now we are faced with decisions our loved ones have made regarding their own lives. These are their decisions. We may not like or agree with them, and when the consequences affect our lives, we begin asking ourselves the question, why are we being confronted with this bizarre behavior? In our minds it is bizarre behavior. Having learned to respect ourselves and others we are suddenly dealing with whatever it is that has prompted these special people to act out this part of their life journey. Sadly, we find our respect for them diminishing.

The key words though, are, their life journey. We hurt. We cry. We find our loyalties being pulled in all directions. Our life is not the same. When will it all end? When will everything get back to normal? Why does it have to be this way? What can we do about it? How can we change it?

The answers are inside you. The answers are what you have been learning, thinking, feeling and doing since you were born. You have learned your lessons well and the time has come to apply them.

You allow your loved ones to walk their paths.

You tell them your feelings, but you let them walk their paths.

You think of them as their own persons, with their own thoughts and feelings, which are separate from yours.

You love them and know that although they are on a different path at this moment they still love you.

Just know that whatever decision has been made in their lives, though it affects yours, your only responsibility to them is to continue to love them. Their decisions can only harm you if you cease to be true to yourself. You have discipline. As you continue to love them unconditionally, not allowing their actions to influence your thinking or behavior in a negative way you will come to accept the path they have chosen. It may or may not be the right one for them, and in your mind it is certainly not the right one for you. For now it must be.

In closing, let me remind you to live your life free from the guilt others would impose upon you, free from the necessity to impose guilt upon others, and free to love and be loved unconditionally.

This is the way I love you. This is the way God loves you. This is the way love is.

(This letter was written many years ago to some very special people in my life).