Tag Archives: #inspire

Mental Health

My Father Died From Cancer, and It Taught My Mother to Write

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I painstakingly pieced this story from the several treasured excerpts of her diary

You must have a divine heart to be so full of vigor when life is a misery, filled with it like a precious vase… – Olya Aman

My mother makes beauty beautiful.

She dreams in words of love and hope when her life is tragic enough to make my face distort with darkness.

Her life is a sad song for an outsider and a bright red fire for those who have the privilege to know the divine rebellion of her smile, the cheering appreciativeness of her spirit, and the great resoluteness of her mind.

My mother gifted me with her beautiful diary on my 30th birthday. I painstakingly pieced this story from the several treasured excerpts from it.

Grace Your Life with the Presence of a Diary

Life may seem vengeful. When a beloved person is forever lost the existence appears empty. A painful loss sternly represses breathing although the chest is heaving with passionate feeling. Eyes become blind to all life attractions, ears deaf to all the words of love and affection. Every living being that still keeps smiling looks so provokingly heartless and mindless.

May 1988: “I buried myself in the full of soul eyes of my dying husband. I know I need to think of my dear child and myself for her sake, but it is so hard to tear myself from his bedside. His sufferings make my heart weep. I wish I could sacrifice myself and save him. His voice rising painfully when he holds my hand and pronounces my name. I quiver with restrained grief and smile to cheer him up.”

My father was going through tormenting sufferings on his way to the end of life. His pain, the result of advanced incurable cancer, was inadequately relieved. The question of surgery was not even possible to discuss. It was too late.

May 1988: “My diary is my salvation. I often write and hold his hand in mine. I put on paper what I feel and fold it in two. I plead and pray to God and hide it in my soul.”

July 1988: “He is in constant pain but looks the very incarnation of quiet bravery and love. Even in his intolerable condition, he strives to carry away my disquietude by talking about the beauty of life after death and the pleasure I should feel on this earth even when he will leave me.”

August 1988: “Whenever he is awake from his tired slumber he asks me to write the messages to daughter so I can deliver it to her when she will grow up to understand the preciousness of every word that was voiced through pain and suffering. I like to listen to his sentiments. I love his extreme good sense, his exquisite taste, and the feeling of life. He urges our girl to be uncompromisingly bold in the defense of her opinion and life principals, to be earnest and keen in pursuing her dreams, and to win the esteem of her mother and father by vindicating her character from any unkind inclination.”

Let Place, People, and Obligations Comfort Your Spirit

The freedom of nature and tranquility of some quiet shelter gives a sense of repose and expansion to the mind. When you take your place on a bench under your favorite tree it opens the floodgates of your soul. Here in loneliness, you can pour away the tears of grief. Being with beautiful life one on one you can learn all over again to feel the rays of sunshine with your soul and to experience the freshness of breeze with your heart.

October 1988: “With an agitated, burning heart and brain, I live through every minute of my life without him. How do I dare to live when he is not among the living? The one who in intellect, in purity and elevation of soul, was immeasurably superior to anyone I know. I rush outside to cool my feelings in the balmy winter air, and to compose myself each time I feel the hot tears coming to my throat. The solitude of my garden helps me to put on a gleeful smile to cheer my child.”

December 1988: “The poison of this loss spreads through all my essence. I now recognize its harmful intentions. The serious depth of it may kill life within me. I fight it, turn my back upon it. I seek retirement for my pain in taking care of my girl. She is my salvation. I let my head to be carried away by her childish ideas. There is no better cure like a merry, simple-hearted child — ever ready to cement broken heart, to melt the ice of freezing soul, and overthrow the walls of sorrowful isolation.”

Open up Your Heart to a Friend

It is an overwhelming toil to be in constant grief. Everyone needs to recover from the effects of it and a close attachment to the living dear people is the best cure in this case. A heartfelt conversation with a friend can fill you with faith, hope, and joy. It will drive away the keen regrets and bitter dregs of lingering sorrow that still oppresses your heart.

March 1989: “My mother is my faithful friend. When I see a flash of love in her eyes, a glow of sincere care on her face — I think that one day I will cease to feel this pain. When throbbing recollection flashes upon me, and a cloud of sorrow darkens my eyes, I talk to her: in person, on the phone, or in my mind, and a moment of inward conflict gives place to quiet conduct. I start to behave with exceeding calmness so that she never had to reprove me once.”

Delightful and Fruitful Activity

Perhaps another great healing technique would be an activity, business, hobby — the mode of actions that is enjoyable to the utmost degree for you. Keeping yourself busy and enjoying every moment of it is not a job, it is a recovery process that cures your heart and heals your soul. Leading an active life prevents you from disturbing your own heart by touching upon the infectious thoughts of loss and grief too often.

November 1989: “I started my diary with more truth than wisdom. In the beginning, I was still fearing to be rooted to my loss. Often the paroxysm of pain and despair was preventing me from saying what I was intended to say. A torrent of tears stained the pages with misery, and I prayed for forgetfulness. But only memory gave life to my words. Never do I endure so long, so blissful nights as when I write. I go through every moment of happiness and pain all over again. My goal is to keep the fire of my foaming and swelling with emotions life engaging and bright, so it warms the heart of my child when I give it to her to read and remember.”

September 1990: “Smiles and tears are so alike with me. I often cry when there is nothing left but to laugh and smile when I am in bitter grief. My diary is my remedy. I feel graceful easiness and freedom about all I do these days. The expansion that this new activity gives to my mind is so refreshing.”

October 1990: “I cannot stop writing. A broad sea is rolling between my past and present. My soul is forever united to the one that is dead in body but always living in my heart. My husband is my everyday companion. I feel his soothing presence. And this feeling of our reunion is not sad anymore, but rejuvenating.”

My mother started a diary and found consolation in putting her feelings on paper. Writing those down by-the-by brought consolation. It brightened the doomed comprehension of life. The melancholy musings and painful lamentations stayed on paper.

The words of sorrow, written in her diary, purchased solace and tranquility.

Conclusion

To find an antidote to painful emotions is essential. Grief, when left alone, may carry you away against any reason and will. It breathes a tired apathy born of long sorrow and hopelessness. You need to fight for your life and happiness every day for the sake of those who are living and for those who are no longer among us.

To be a prey to distressful feelings is a sad destiny. To do our utmost to live life happily is the only installment of our universal debt. There is certain graceful ease about being busy with daily life, household chores, taking care of the kids. These activities distract from painful recollections. When you remind yourself that there are still living people that need your attention, you tend to forget to torment yourself with thoughts about death — life is calling you to be present and active.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

In a Field of Battle With Regret, You Must Either Slay or Be Slain

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My boss fell in love with me and laid me off

Regret made me goofy. Sorrow gave me an enigmatic flavor. – Olya Aman

I was out of heart

The existence of conscience makes the claws of regret sharp. And the stronger one, the deeper the other can penetrate a sensitive flesh. The depressing influence of this feeling creates the sensation of a jail in a living body. This emotion casts a grim look on life. The damp atmosphere that regret creates is suffocating. We need to learn how to dispel the smog from the past and at the same time to keep our hearts from being dried-up.

I was out of humor and out of heart. It has been almost two years now, but my grief grew fast and furious with every succeeding year. My best friend, the one I was secretly in love with, died from heart failure. Miraculously, we were at the stop sign when it happened, the horn of a car announced the death. His innocent and pathetic face was radiant with new happiness. I couldn’t help wondering how he could be so glad to leave me alone. Sitting on a front passenger seat, I unconsciously called to mind a portrait I saw in a gallery some years ago. The painter neglected the background, reserving all the magic of his brush for the quiet, happy face of a man. My friend at that moment looked just like him, as if he had caught the golden glory of heaven on his countenance.

Arm-wrestling with the past

The catastrophes of previous days can darken with a shade of remorse the future ones. Some deeds are done impetuously, others are out of our control. To weather those storms of life and not to be worn out is the actual purpose of their existence. There is no way to change what’s done, so no need to stamp life with the print of past adversities.

He felt discomfort in his chest for a few weeks before the terrible culmination on that day. I mentioned to him several times that he needed to see a doctor. I blamed myself for lack of persistence. And the regret I felt had a sensation of almost maternal protection. Its watchful eye never left my side. It didn’t let my mind wander elsewhere. Some days I could feel the throbbing of his heart as if he was pressed in an affectionate embrace close to my chest. Those days were worse than others.

I would do impossibilities to bring him back. I owed my happiness to him. It felt like an explosion now when he was gone. And I could not pick up the fragments with all the care of an antiquary I applied. I became stifle. My mind and soul were on fire, and that blaze seemed to gleam from hell. There was no space left for new emotions.

That dark, evening power that dominated in my life had some magnetic energy that attracted empathetic people. There are some ways of looking at you that seem to penetrate your soul. I looked at people and made them feel as though they had nothing on. That irritated a lot and captivated many. After all, that sorrow I endured gave me that Renaissance’s ‘Juliet’ flavor. And my gloomy voice could talk the language of enigmatic gallantry of that time.

I often was behind handed with my work, but my senior manager closed his eyes on every mismatch in my schedule. The tension was growing. I could not see the outpouring lava of affection that I excited. My handsome boss was on fire, like a human volcano he loved me with the fierce of unchained nature.

But I was a different person after 2 years of mourning. I gazed about me with a saddened eye, paying attention to the dim side of life. That desire to expand every misfortune in daily life and minimize the impact of many little jolly things was roasting me alive. I needed thunder and lightning to wake me up and transform that death-like, sepulchral look into my regular prior-to-the-fatal-day features.

My heart finally spoke to me, and I happened to take to it. The blow of losing a job served as a curing disaster that shook my essence. When enough time was given to self-wandering, I realized that there were still pages in my life book that I had not read.

Let me tell you what I’ve found on those pages

Arm-wrestling with the past is an exhausting and worthless process. A positive view on days-by-gone creates a profusion of loving energy that motivates a person in his life. Occurrence in the past, bad or good, is a wonderful lesson that builds personality. Everyone is unique because every experience is individual. The way one interprets it determines his success or failure in life. There is no way to change the past, but altering your attitude towards it is magical.

Give a new turn to your thoughts

To be more ardent, more eloquent, more entrancing is a process of growth that often goes hand in hand with ill luck and pain. For the sake of my future happy life, I’ve decided to respect my past. That experience was a tombstone that kept the castle of my unique personality firm and steady. In the enormous mileage of the past, everything is a blessing. Tears poured over some broken expectations should teach a lesson of breathing through the pain and moving with a renewed and re-skilled hope.

Revert the importance

Life is cooler when sometimes less weight is given to the important and more value devoted to the trifling little jolly things. So, in other words, performing a blah with sarcastic importance and taking important for a mumbo-jumbo is quite a good key to a lighter step in life. Various pieces of information assemble the personality and it just happens so that misfortunes give a more positive outcome in terms of helpful life tools than merry experiences could have done.

Let the past be your capital

Trudging timidly through life was a punishment that I inflicted on myself when consciously dwelled on the past with disappointment in my mind. I decided to consider my past experience as a capital that can help me to take the right turn in the right moment in the future.

The result proved to be magnificent

I do not have greedy teeth for blessings, but always remember to be grateful for every little merry moment. That is why life is good-natured to me now. Happiness is the poetry spoken in a woman’s voice. I had my second chance to hear the poem of my life.

Now I and my ex-boss listen to those delicious sounds together.

Stay tuned…