Yesterday morning, after a sleepless night I wrote the post about unconditional love, about knowing to the depth of my soul, no matter what I will not be the one to abuse my wounded child.
I let go of all things but unconditional love.
My husband and I had decided we would get out of the house and go for breakfast to give us a chance to talk privately.
My husband turns to me when I enter the car and says, “do you have anything left to say to our daughter, is there anymore you have to offer?”
And I say very weak defeated, no, I have nothing, all my knowing, my wise words and experience, all my efforts and love are not seemingly working, I am at the end of the road, I have nothing.
He says, “Good. Here is how this is going to go down. What we did to her last night, by pressing her is going to drive her out of our home. I will not do that to her. She is hurt and needs a place to be, where there is no one pressuring her, a place where she feels comfortable…I love my daughter and want her always to feel that she is welcome in our home no matter what.
I tell him, I agree. I just learned about my unconditional love for her, that I too will not hurt her when she is down.
The next thing he says is you have to let her go, let her do it her way, let her be EVEN if she decides to move out of our home, let her decide, You have to let her go.
I tell him he is asking too much.
In that instant, I feel the little girl in me terrified of letting go, of losing once again.
I tell him, Honey I know about letting go, about letting them decide, of allowing them to be, I let my family go and none of them came back to me.
I have lost and I have lost and none of them ever come back, you are asking way too much, and now you are asking me to let go of my little girl to let her go free while she is alone and lost.
I can’t let her go, for if she doesn’t come back I don’t know what I will do, I can’t let her go, I don’t have a heart big enough to bear this if she doesn’t come back.
I tell him, “Mr. Big as a House Heart Man, you will have to lead this, you will have to stand in front of me, for me with the “Little as a Rock Broken Heart lady can’t be out front, I am afraid that if this little piece shatters, I will not have anything left, that I will go down and not come back up.”
Honey I can let her go but your big heart will have to carry me, my heart isn’t big enough to do this alone and I don’t know how.
In that moment I felt my holding grasp, its final clutch leave, and she was set off alone.
Peace overcame me in that instant that seemed to settle over the spot that terror lived.
My husband continues on unaffected by my emotional display. He says, “we can’t tell her what to do, she is a young lady, she is inexperienced, but this is how she will learn, we will offer her a space here to heal, but not tell her what to do.”
I am in total agreement and following his lead.
It is the first time in my life I let go of being responsible of taking the lead of getting on the back of the motor bike, of getting out of the wind and flying bugs and debris to snuggle in behind him and let him tell me what it is we need to do.
What my husband and I then discussed was exactly what he had done for me six years ago when my world crumbled, when I too discovered that the relationships I had were very dysfunctional, when I had lost my way, when I found my self upside down and backwards, when I didn’t have a radar that knew its way, my dear husband opened up his heart wider, opened up our home, and allowed me to enter in.
Nothing changed inside, it remained a place of normal in an otherwise upside down unnormal world.
I entered in exactly as I found myself; there were no requirements no rules or regulations that I had to change first to be here.
He allowed me the space, he demanded nothing, he asked no questions, he made no suggestions, he allowed me, a frightened wounded animal, to come into the warm space of his loving home and curl up an be safe.
He never, not once asked me to do something I did not want to do, he waited for me to decide I was ready.
He never not once wanted me to be further healed than I was, he waited for me to share with him.
He continued to love and hold me like nothing had changed, to him I was the same person but sick or wounded, that was all.
I told him, ”What you want me to do for our daughter is what you already did for me, I can do this.”
I get to be him, to walk in his shoes and just allow her to be. I know even more for I have actually walked those steps.
I felt immediately, that this was the right path for healing for I know that without him, this house, the space and undemanding loved ones, I would not have made it. I can now give to her that.
I told him, “I can’t imagine what this had to be like for you, with a wounded wife, to be the only one to do this, it had to be very hellish, and how did we make it through that?”
He isn’t wanting to go back, he wants to be here.
He tells me, “you are not to say anything negative, in fact you are not allowed to say anything at all, you are to go on creating a loving home, doing what we have always done here and let her just be.”
I say, “Honey I get it, I get to be a loving mom unconditionally l can do this.”
I say I will follow your lead, for did the perfect job for me.
As we sat face to face over breakfast, my body a noodle, empty and drained, feeling like I had just completed a 6 year marathon, I say to him.
“Honey, what would a perfect mother have done?”
He says to me, “she would have stopped this morning like you did, she would done exactly everything you did and said, but she would stop now and let her go.”
I know for some this may not seem like an answer to a trouble wounded child, but it worked for a very mentally twisted up and wounded adult child.
I sit in awe of what this man has done for me, and what we, him and I can do for our little girl, our almost woman child who has been wounded, we can open our home, our hearts and welcome her in.
We demand nothing but accept all.
We say nothing unless asked.
We work hard to maintain the energy or atmosphere of our home as it always was.
We keep this the one piece in the world unchanged in her very changed life.
This home, the people in this home were my saving grace.
They never treated me like the outside world talked of me, they remained true to me as what we had previous, they did not change.
They went to work and did what they loved, they did not have a blame or shameful eye directed at me.
In their eyes I was imperfectly me.
