Amongst all the beautiful comments and good wishes for the coming launch, a friend sent me this. As usual, because of the sentiment behind it, I ended up tissue in hand.
Of course, the lyrics have meaning for me on many levels, from the adventure now beginning, to seeing my son and his little Faith taking their own path towards a future together, having themselves faced so many trials. Yet they move forwards, hand in hand, in love and with a laughing grace that warms my heart.
Yesterday, after the eviction of the flying mammoth and the spider, I sat on my son’s bed and, as it is wont to do, the conversation turned from the lunacy we share in laughter to more serious thoughts. We spoke of the nature of love and what it means for each of us. I will not go into detail. Suffice it to say that yet again the tears pricked my eyelids and my heart felt full as my son spoke of his love. And because love makes us alive to each other, he read the minute movement of eye and breath and wordlesslyunderstood.
The conversation reminded me of the oft-quoted phrase of Ghandi, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world” and put it in the context of parenthood. Much of my sons’ childhood was lived in the shadow of my late partner’s illness. He suffered for many years with an acute and generalised arthritis, and then, for a long time, the cancer that ended his life. They saw silent gallantry every day as he overcame the limitations it imposed on his body and the unimaginable imprint it made on mind and emotions.
He was strict with the boys, but he loved them dearly and we had fun. They were, perhaps too young to understand what the miles and miles of walking we enjoyed together cost him… they only remember those sunny days as a family. They never knew he had discharged himself from hospital shortly after one of the early cancer surgeries to take them to an airshow. Only that he had promised to take them and did so. They remember only the planes and the helicopter ride. They were far too young to realise the constant ball of pain that never left my heart as I watched a man I loved deeply slowly slipping away as we filled the days with living and laughter.
But they saw, and by an unconscious osmosis learned a way to love, taking what they learned and making it their own. I have seen them face horror with gallant grace and smiles. I see love in them both and, biased as I know I am, can only say it shines.
Perhaps we do not learn to love, only how. For a child giving love is a simple thing. Perhaps it is that the events of our lives that teach us instead to guard our hearts from hurt and put the barriers up. Then love comes with conditions and fears, our own insecurities teach it to require reciprocation and place limits on what we dare to give and the heartache we dare to risk for ourselves. And from these very barriers and limitations the hurt we fear can be born.
I remember a man who had asked me to be his wife, saying in all seriousness that should I get cancer or some other long term illness, he would walk away. There is no blame here, he was honest. There is only a memory of sadness for him and for the hurt that was behind his words. He cannot know what he would have done had such a day ever come, but his fear put up so many barriers to life and love that I think he will never be free to find what he seeks.
Love doesn’t need to come with conditions. We do not choose to love, it chooses us. It just is. Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”. All it needs is a faith of the heart.
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Awareness matters
This month is Parkinson’s Awareness Month globally, andAwareness Week UK. Please show your support for those who live with Parkinson’s, those who care, and those who seek to find new treatments for this progressive condition that can strike any one of us at any age. Thank you.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
I love Rod Stewart and his words touch you with to love and assist those who have been hurt. Hope you don’t mind my reblogging. Hugs, Barbara
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Not at all, Barbara. I am honoured. Thank you.
Hugs,
Sue
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Reblogged this on idealisticrebel and commented:
Let the words wash over your heart and soul.
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Thank you x
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Beautiful thoughts, true thoughts of a good loving heart. I wish you from the heart good luck and lots of joy with the weekend that comes and all the events you’ve been working so hard for. I wish I could have been a bird in your garden to witness that all in awe…
Have a fabulous time and a royal weather, you deserve it my dear friend.
Much love and blessings,
Ela
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Thank you, Ela.
I shall be hoping for a mild spring dawn on Sunday on the hillside.. but whatever the weather, it will be perfect 🙂
Much love and Light to you
Sue x
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Beautiful and inspirational. Your imagery is matched only by your expressiveness and total conviction towards your purpose. Thank you for my “morning read” before I go to work! Love does conquer all!
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Thank you .. that I am read at all remains a wonder and the biggest of gifts. .. so your words mean a great deal.
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Reblogged this on The healthiest beauty.
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Such a beautiful post and video – both brought tears to my eyes. You and your children are amazing. Thanks so much for sharing.
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My children bring tears to my eyes frequently too… 😉
Thank you
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Yes….
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🙂
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love does choose us – I believe this wholeheartedly. this is why it is so difficult to let go of it (this is my perspective and experience talking). love is a strange thing is it not? so simple but so complicated. OR is it the complicated humans that make it complicated?
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I think it is the way we see love sometime that is complicated. Love simply is.. and it is bigger than we are and can encompass the world. It gets complex, I think, when we try to catch little bits of it, holding it close.. but if we can accept it whole, then it is a much more simple thing, and oddly easier to handle than the bits 🙂
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beautifully said:)
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🙂
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A beautiful post, a beautiful person and obviously a beautiful family. With much admiration, Ellen
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Thank you Ellen.. we are an odd lot here, but I’m sort of proud of my boys 🙂 x
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You have every reason to be proud of them and yourself. Your writing alone floors me but it is not just well written but well lived and that is what makes it so good. xx
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Thank you, Ellen. You have to do something with experience, I think, before it has any value to anyone except yourself and I have had a life richly varied. It now serves as fuel for the flame I tend.
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