On Love and Children and Superman and Super Powers and Letting Go.

I've been thinking a lot lately about where I have been finding joy and the many permutations of love in my life. As all of you know, knowing love through the lens of Jim's cancer, being his caretaker and then my deep, deep grief left me lost for a long time. And yet I also recognize that I was also found. We truly lived our love to the fullest—"in sickness and in health until death did part us". And so I know now myself more deeply. As I wrote a friend yesterday "I'm ever so grateful to have recovered myself. But also I know I had to do a lot of deep, pain filled work to get here after losing Jim who taught me so much on what love and joy is, wanting to die myself. It feels so good, so amazing to be back among the living. A gift of the gods."

And through this process, I've learned that I have a new set of super powers that I am bringing forward to my Guardian Ad Litem work with children and families as well as to my own family, friends, and those who also have experienced grief and trauma. I can now sit with folks, be fully there, and if needed, hold their pain. Something I was truly awkward at before. I can be present in a way I never could before. Why? Because I have been lost and alone and know that darkness can slowly be emerged from, back into the light. It's a weird super power that I credit to Jim and my love, how graciously we held each other and Jim's last words to me, "you are so beautiful" when in fact I looked like crap at that time from pure exhaustion and grief and yet he saw something deeper. His words have sustained me these last five years.

You are so beautiful. 

We are each so beautiful even when at times our dramas, our self despair, our ego, our whatever makes us human threatens to hide our beauty. I especially appreciate that beauty when I am with children. Children can be difficult for many adults to sit with and truly listen to. They have a different set of languages and revealing. To be there with them, we have to be like them. It's as if when we enter adulthood, we lose our own sense of childhood joy and possibilities. My other super power that I have recently discovered is my love of play and games—very much I realize a part of learning that we love participating in as children. Sitting with a child while they play a video game for instance by asking questions and interpreting their stories can be a deep way of connecting. Letting go of judgement, putting myself in a different time space is required. Letting go into their world. Creating a new world together. The beauty of children is how in the moment they truly are. How they open so fully to being respected and listened to.

Recently along with sitting playing with Nicole's son, I have shared this with two of my GAL boys, one an introverted teen, another a small boy. It happened again when spending time with my sister Theresa after her open heart surgery, definitely a stressful time for all of us. Theresa and I played Uno as she recovered in the ICU. I felt like we were children again ourselves, disconnecting from all the trauma we have both experienced in our lives and simply being pure of heart. 

Each of these instances have allowed me to get to know the children and my sister better, creating a bond of trust, and has given me more insight into myself. We all have our individual super powers to call upon in times like these. I bet you know yours. I recognize that in myself, it starts by allowing in love. That is how my heart feels when I'm in these moments, in love. The same way I felt when Jim looked deeply at me one last time and with so little strength shared the most important message. You are so beautiful. We are each so beautiful. The lens of love allows us to do so.

Like a caring mother holding and guarding the life of her only child, so with a boundless heart of loving kindness, hold yourself and all beings as your beloved children. —Gautama Buddha

Last week I sold a painting to a dear friend, Fern, who I've known over 20 years ago. In fact we bonded over a program she created, wherein we taught technology to teachers. An experience that subsequently had much impact on my own work as a teacher and curriculum designer. She and her husband were visiting Vermont. As a I showed them my studio and current work, Fern spotted a painting sitting in my racks that I had done in 2012 and she fell in love with it! She asked to buy it and at first I wasn't sure that I wanted to let it go. It is an odd favorite of mine, one of my abstract paintings. It had begun as one thing but then while in process, the Sandy Hook massacre took place. And with that, it just arose becoming what it is now. Totally an intuitive, emotion based work. Now I realize that it is about those sweet, tiny children and their teachers' souls being released into divine love after their life ending trauma. I let my logical brain go and followed the flow of creativity. I believe those children and their teachers "emerged from darkness, back into the light".  I believe we all will. So of course I knew I could also "let go" of the painting to my friend where it will be cherished.

As Christ admonished his disciples and said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God."...And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them. –Mark 10:14-16

So what does this all mean to me now? I am saddened and angry at the state of our world right now. At our politics and how we as a country have lost our bearing. We, as a country give lip service to faith and yet in actions take away from those who truly need support. We, as a nation say we believe in right to life but don't support the children we have. We, as a world power say we are moral yet support the bombing and starvation of children in Gaza. We, as a people say we believe in family and yet deny equality to all genders and the right to determine what is best for our children.

My daughter and I went to see Superman the other night and believe it or not that movie gave me hope. Yes, a super hero movie. All too often, this genre has been overtaken by a dark world view, perhaps in response to our world or perhaps a builder of our future actions. A dystopian world. Can we blame the creators, doesn't the world particularly feel that way right now? But this version of Superman flipped the script and posed this dilemma in a new light. It brought back the Superman of my childhood, and more, elevated its world view grounding super strength not to physicality but to human choice, value-based choice. One based on love of humanity. It's a media message that I feel we need more of.  Having come out of the darkness  in the last few year, I know the super strength it requires—one enabled by those who love us and requiring a rare commodity these days. Hope. 

Hope is where I'm landing this morning's ramblings. Hope is what children possess as if an everlasting spring bubbles inside themselves. As adults, faced with life's realities of death and failure and running after impermanent values, we easily lose the source of that spring. Digging deep, trusting our path, leaning into those who love us, embracing Hope, Love, Grace, spending time with children, and letting go, to me that is what allows us to discover our super powers and to experience and embrace, "you are so beautiful, life is so beautiful".