14 April 2009

living in gratitude 50 : acceptance



This morning Sushumna left to go back to India, so we have started the roster of people coming to cook dinner for me. Tonight Francois came to cook.

We spoke of an incident that happened on my second last day in hospital : my younger brother, David came to visit and expressed that, he had hoped, in coming to see me, that he could "cure" me.

Over the last few days, several people have expressed their inability to do anything for me at the moment (as they live so far away).

With Francois, we spoke of the difficulty of when people do come to visit, or who are far away, feel "helpless" towards me as no one can really "do" anything for me, except, the small gestures of kindness, like a cooked meal, or doing some grocery shopping for me, or sending a card by the post, or posting a gift or a drawing or a cd of favourite songs. We spoke of "what can others do in this situation?"
And we both agreed, that acceptance of what the other is going through is really important.


I had raised this with Sushumna too, as her path is one of service to others. We had spoken of the importance of "compassion". But, as she said, it was difficult to understand what I was going through, as she had not gone through something as traumatic as 120 hours of radiation, nor didn't know someone whom had gone through something as tough as that.


So what do we do ?


I think today (and tomorrow I may have a different answer), the answer would be about letting me "be" tired, "be" weak... because I cannot "be" any other way... thus acceptance...

wonder if that makes sense...


For those who want to be more active in their giving, of course, loving thoughts + prayers help enormously.

But I think now I am at the stage where I would like to focus people's generosity to those near by them (I am particularly talking of people living outside of Paris - as my Paris crew definately are useful for the day-to-day needs), - go and help someone else out who may be in need of a hand (who may live near you) and tell me of the experience. The story / the experience would give me a huge amount of joy - like a domino effect ...

Or sponsor a child (why not?) from an orphanage run in Togo by a woman my age, who is a good friend of my mother: http://www.avenir-togo.org/en/index.php

Reason I say this is, at the moment, I really don't feel a lot can be done for me at the moment from anyone. Just time + patience + self-kindness to recuperate this body from a very traumatic dosage of radiation. I feel I have received so much from so many...

Maybe this sounds a bit mad - but that is how I feel tomorrow (and maybe tomorrow I'll feel like having everyone's loving energy steered my way...)

I've discovered TV series (6 feet under + life on mars) + dvds + and am still drawing + finally starting to read again...




Went to Institut Marie Curie today - my first time I travelled beyond my street since I came back from hospital. (I have photos but cannot find my cable so cannot load them up). It was traumatic to go back to the hospital - I cried when I came out, I just feel so sad about the radiation I experienced there and so sad about how physically low I feel.


The journey there and back was more than enough for me (went by taxi but there was a bit of walking involved) - I could see I had much more energy in my head that in my body... + that the climb up the stairs was indeed challenging...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think your idea of passing on to somone close to us what we cannot give you is truly loving and kind as you are. I am writing to tell you I will still be thinking of you daily. Did you find your Hearts of Space music yet? You should have an email telling you about it and how to listen. I hope it helps. Beverly in Houston.