Full of Grace

Going through some older photos I remembered how much these things delighted me:

Hiking this summer with  my daughter we came across this in the middle of nowhere

It still makes me smile . . .  in a weird way

This plant popped up in my flower garden.

I didn’t plant it. It just appeared this year and gave me bountiful flowers all summer

Accidentally stumbling into this bookstore.

It was like walking into a treasure chest of old books

And lastly, this bear that was recently spotted wandering through our suburban town.

Nobody got crazy and wanted to shoot it. Everyone was just fascinated and enjoyed the sightings as it made its way peacefully through.

Collateral Beauty

I recently watched the movie “Collateral Beauty”.  Not a great movie and rather disrespectful/ignorant of people going through grief, but Helen Mirren was in it so not a waste of time either.  It is a movie about a man whose young daughter died of cancer causing him to get angry at, and retreat from life.  But one scene depicts an old woman advising the daughter’s mother “to notice the collateral beauty” surrounding death.

I am not sure exactly what that term meant for the characters of this story. But I recognized the feeling immediately.  Having been destroyed by trauma and a tragic loss I was very fortunate to come back from that with the help friends and an amazing therapist.  And once I crawled out of that hole I was aware of a new sense of love and beauty I had never known.  In a very strange way that trauma was a gift.

I try not to watch too much news coverage of horrendous events such as the Las Vegas massacre.  But one thing I always notice are the selfless acts of kindness that follow these kinds of tragedies.  The strangers who put victims in their cars and raced them to a hospital. The people who used their own bodies to shield others. The first responders who saved so many other lives.  One deranged gunman. Hundreds of loving, selfless human beings.  

Collateral beauty.

I am friends with a woman who works in a hospice and one of the things she has noticed working with the dying is, when faced with death, they discover a deep love and trust in the goodness of life, regardless of the pain and suffering they may be going through.

Collateral beauty.

I look back in awe at the way my life has unfolded over the years.  Sometimes I feel like I am living a fairy tale with a happy, loved and rewarding life. Not a fairy tale that erases the suffering that came before, but rather a life that has overcome it in amazing ways.  Trauma and sorrow gave me a depth of love and awareness within myself that I didn’t know I had.  

Collateral beauty.

Of course, some sadness is insurmountable and the effects of trauma are a lifelong struggle.  I’m not trying to soften the enormous emotional toll of tragedy.  But I do think perhaps a deep level of suffering can sometimes provide a door to something even deeper.  And we are very fortunate if we find the key which allows us to wake up to the gift of love and life in each passing day.

Anniversaries

“What will I become,

when I no longer carry

the weight of all this?”

-  Tyler Knott Gregson

Anniversaries can be hard and September 28th is a particularly difficult one for me. Memories bubble up and must be acknowledged.  Some memories are voluntary while others are intrusive and come whether I like it or not.  

I still tremble when I think about what happened to me. To Daphne.  After the attack I lost myself. I locked myself away for months and wouldn’t come out. I was scared of space. Scared of things being in the open. Scared of having to talk to people. Scared of being stared at.  

With help I have worked on my own healing and recovery for over 20 years and have come a long way. But I still struggle through anniversaries when I need to focus more on the never-ending work of healing from trauma.

Rape shaped me and my sense of who I am.

And who I am not.

When I was raped, I lost a lot of things: my choice, my esteem and my voice.

Through this blog I have made connections with other rape survivors. Once I was asked to come and speak to one woman’s professional group.  I couldn’t do it. I went to the presentation and started to listen to others’ stories but I couldn’t even stay in the room.

I am not as brave as others.

I have such admiration for those women who can tell their stories and are changing the way the world sees and reacts to rape. Those brave women who go to court and talk about what happened to them and show their scars, even in the face of withering victim blaming.  I want to be a witness with them but I am unable to do it.  

I am ashamed and embarrassed that I can’t.

If I talk about the ways I’m affected— how I still wake to night terrors and how groups of men scare me—people will say I am so sorry, and then I’ll be the thing that happened to me instead of being me. But there are lots of other things that define me as well. Although I still grieve for who I was,  I am someone else now.  

I have learned to be okay with that.

The greatest act of love I have ever given myself was the willingness to do what I needed to do to heal. Although it still feels like work, I now also see it is as one of the biggest blessings I have been given.  I have found myself again.

I hope to someday find my voice.

Today I woke to the horrendous news out of Las Vegas.  And once again I sympathize with all those who will forever be changed by trauma.  I know the long road they have ahead of them and I hope that all those who need to heal choose to do this work.