Tag

Christmas Kindness

Browsing
Are you okay?

I do not want this December to be like the last one.
I do not want to talk about vitamins, vaccines, and the virus.
I do not want to worry. Worry about the people I love, the people I know, everyone in my life.
I do not want to pretend to be happy, and I do not want to live in sad.
I do not want to make plans and have them turn to sand.
I do not want to dig any deeper to find joy.
I am not okay.

I have been here before.
I have had these feelings before. The reasons were different.
I know I have been here before.

I planned and packed for the holidays. In ways, my friends could not understand.
I unpack. I set the room. Her own duvet turns it into her own bedroom.
I remembered the spare headphones. I remembered the plastic stim toy. I bought the must-have foods.
I re-organised most of the furniture. The wheelchair must get through.
I arranged the activities in advance and prepared everyone.
I knew where the nearest hospital was, and I packed the medical reports. Just in case.
I cooked. I served. I entertained.

I did well.
I got to it all.
I think it will be okay.

I forgot to pack my food (I don’t eat meat), my book and well a couple things that make me…me.
It will be okay.

I wake. I listen. She calls. I go. I calm fears I do not understand. 
I go back to bed. I sleep. 
I wake. He coughs. He quiets. He coughs. He reaches for his asthma pump. I hold him. 
I feel the morning. I tip-toe out of the room. I set up for the day ahead.
I see them, my younger children, racing on the shoreline. My heart swells because they are mine.
I smile. I wave. They enjoy the beach.
I sit here. I hold her hand. The sand and the wind: too much for her.

I'll go to the shore tomorrow.
I'll go and dip my toes.
It will be quick. I’ll be back. They will need me again.

See,
I've felt this before. I felt all this, and I felt nothing, all in one go. But then
I learnt that all and nothing can work themselves out, when 
I dared to stop and ask them, what are they all about?
I heard them say: we are trying to let you know it’s okay to not be okay. 
I asked in a shaky voice: what is the way to being, “not okay”, as you say?
I heard them soothingly whisper: Come into the day quietly and softly before they all awake. 
We will teach you what it means to not be okay. 

I woke without the alarm. I started to write.
I wrote to God. I wrote to my heart.  I wrote for all the ones like me.
I find sometimes, I bake. Sometimes I sing. Sometimes, I just sit and think.

I come into the day quietly and softly. I marvel at how much I pack into that short space of time, that makes me…me. 
I'm okay not being okay. Are you? - Desirae Pillay 2021 

Desirae has three children: Savannah (25 years), Talisa (19years) and Eli Michael (13 years). Savannah was born when Desirae was eighteen years old and she was a single mother for a time before marrying Michael. Savannah is autistic and is a person with cerebral palsy. Michael and Desirae care for Savannah as she cannot live independently. Desirae worked as an Assistive Technology Advisor in the disability sector, served in the autism community, and is now employed in the child safety sector. She writes for the purpose of sharing different perspectives and to encourage a thinking line around being kinder and more considerate of other people’s experiences in the areas of parenting, childhood trauma and disability. She writes because she knows that Faith, Hope and Love abide.

My family and I are slightly obsessed with Christmas. We usually can’t wait to set up our tree which is a celebration that is infused with a few of our own traditions. The most important being that we have a special dinner afterwards to kick off the countdown to Christmas Day. But before we tuck into a sumptuous meal (which I never spend more than an hour making, because simple, easy dishes are fundamental to my sanity); we complete a few other traditions. One segment being the specific part that each of our children play in ushering in the Christmas season when we decorate the tree.

Eli places the star at the top of the tree, which has always been the job of the youngest child.

When we only had the girls, it was then Talisa’s job to crown the tree with the star. Now she has the job of switching on the tree lights.

 

The Christmas baubles with photographs that are on the tree were made by my sister-in-law as a gift to us in 2015.

Savannah being the eldest gets to place the wreath on the front gate with help from Michael. Each person places their own Christmas ornament on the tree and we capture the moment in a photo to mark the occasion. I keep photographs of this moment for each child for almost all their lives.

We have ornaments for extended family too and they get to decorate our tree with it when they visit us. Then we have ornaments from friends and family who live far away and we think of them as we find a bare branch for their ornament.

As I watch my children taking more of a lead in decorating the tree and I listen to their banter about continuing these traditions in their own homes one day, I’m struck by the contrast in what makes up their childhood memories and in what makes up my childhood memories. This time of year can be a wonderful experience for many children when their families look forward to coming together to recreate moments from an ocean of memories filled with traditions, warmth and love.

The festivities were of no interest to our black labrador Blue.

For adults with traumatic childhoods, this time of year can be a sad reminder of what we missed out on as children. The magic of Christmas are only drops in our ocean of memories. I remember so many Christmases as a child feeling an ache inside of me as I ‘made-believe’ that I was happy. I wrote about this earlier this year in the post The Past And the Present Met and in a post last year You Cannot Be Depressed Then There Was Me

I remembered so badly wanting the make-belief to be real. With that childhood as my backdrop, I became a parent to a child with a disability at eighteen years old. I had to parent within a family and a social circle with loose morals and a tight grasp on maintaining the look of success at all costs.

For many Christmases as a parent I wrestled with depression and suicide. Not having developed skills to recognise and to deal with trauma, meant that I felt more overwhelmed at this time of year as my life became defined by my daughter’s special needs.  It was a very long process to becoming mentally and emotionally strong.

What kept me from completely going over the edge was the determination to raise my children in a life that was without fear, without self-doubt, without question of my love for them, without insecurity and without violence.  I wanted my children to know what it felt like to look forward to weekends and school holidays and to enjoy being with their parents in peace. I wanted them to have the freedom to express themselves freely and honestly without restraint or fear of disappointing anyone.

I wanted them to want to live each day to its fullest.

I wanted to ‘want to live’.

I wish someone told me that it was okay to be depressed and that I could still live a good life. Now I’m telling you. You can still live a good life.

I wanted to get better from having lived with sadness for so long. It felt like it was in my bones. It was so much a part of me that it took a long time for me to recognize it. But eventually I did. I did whatever it took to get better. For me it meant learning to believe that my life had value. I found that value in understanding who I was as a child of God. I am so eternally grateful for that simple truth and all that it has given me.

Becoming more of who I was meant to be was a process of understanding my faith and understanding myself. I could not always get professional help and it was incredibly tough to have to deal with my demons very much on my own at times. There were relationships that I could lean on at different points, in big ways and in small ways. There were also very dark days when no one understood what I was going through. I wish I had known about the South African Depression and Anxiety Groups website which would have been incredibly helpful in finding resources.

Someone told me they felt I write to ‘poke the world’. I guess that is one way to look at it. Though I have never intended to do that. I simply write because I’m grateful. To have lived with depression and to have overcome suicidal feelings while being responsible for what seemed like everything and everyone, is a story worth telling. It is worth telling from all its perspectives and all its shades.

It is especially worth telling at Christmas time, when I am snuggled in my home with my Christmas tree twinkling away and the memory of all my loved ones beaming with delight keeping me company. December is a time when many people from all different walks of life are more likely to be depressed and suicidal. If this season makes you hurt like hell and you can’t find something good to hold onto then please remember this:

The past is made up of memories. You are a seed of hope. Starting today you can make new and beautiful memories.

You are as capable as anyone of having a good life. Believe Me.

We love our Christmas ornaments. Each tell a story of a life of abundant love.

For helpful and practical advice about how to deal with the Christmas Blues, you will find this article Understanding and Coping With The Christmas Blues by @DarleneLancer worth a read: 
I particularly like the helpful online videos from the South African Depression and Anxiety Group.
error: All content on this website it protected. Please contact me should you need access to my content.