The Angel and the Food Bank

I chanced to meet an angel the other day. I had borrowed a car and was running last minute errands on my way home the day before Christmas Eve. As I passed one of the local Food Banks I thought I’d better go in, maybe luck out and get some carrots and onions. 

I stood in line, got my ticket, got my small bag of stuff and was leaving when I overheard a guy say there were extra hampers. On enquiry sure enough I qualified for one (why am I always surprised?)--Score! Turkey and cranberries were back on the menu.

Another line up, fill in another form, another line up, hand it in . . . it was just like Christmas at home with all our personalities bunched up in that small space together. As you can imagine you get to know people like family by the time we were all directed to the final line up outside the building.

I noticed a young mom standing against the wall, jiggling an adorable two-year old child in a stroller. She had been behind me in the line but had dropped out. She was punching with her thumbs into her phone and I noticed she was crying a little. I went over to her and asked her if I could help. 

The thing is, I hadn't intended on going to the Food Bank this season, didn't think it a good idea when there were so many who were so worse off. But there I was, and there she was: my Christmas miracle.

She was at the Bank for the first time and a little freaked out. I remembered my first trip and how embarrassed I was, how undeserving I felt. How hard I cried later. There's a knack to fitting into the environment at these places too. To give her time to regain her composure I admitted it can be unnerving at first. I gave her a quick tutorial: Never make eye contact with anyone, never be jolly to cover your nervousness (looks like condescension), and if you’re feeling unsafe look at the guard. I suggested she try it. She raised startlingly clear grey eyes and searched for him, he noticed her right away and smiled back and she relaxed a bit more. 

She said she hadn’t expected the hamper and had dropped out of the line because she had no way of getting it home. She was trying to call someone to come and get her.

I asked her where she lived and would you believe it? She was just a few blocks from my house. I knew then why I'd got that sudden urge to drop by. I suggested we get our hampers together and I could take her and her daughter home. But she said she had come by bus and hadn't brought a car seat.

At this point, we'd made our way outside to the line up running along the outside of the building. There was a big empty and nicely warm room inside but food banks are like that.  Awesome folks with a bit of a “but we’ve always done it this way” kind of a blind spot about some things.

It was very cold so this was not going to be fun. Stoically, I got my chin up and my coat from the car and pretty soon we were freezing. She had come only in a hoodie and her daughter’s fingers were turning red because the baby wouldn’t keep her mitts on. I could have asked to let us wait inside I suppose but you know how it is.

What we didn’t know was if anyone who had preregistered arrived with “A Letter”, they got to go in ahead of the rest of us. The Letter People kept arriving (past the time they were supposed to) so it was a little under an hour before it was finally our turn. We were so cold the young mom couldn’t stop shaking, I was stiff, sore and ignoring a healthy migraine, and the baby was crying. Lots of fun.

While we waited some folks got very upset, especially as the Letter folks dribbled past us, and my heart went out to them. You might think people standing in a food bank line up are all heads down and meekly compliant. Not so. We're human and at the end of our coping rope and many are late on our meds like I was. I think we all did well today given the circumstances. 

The room inside was stacked high with boxes filled with holiday goods. The nice lady behind the table taking my form gave me an encouraging smile. We moved forward. In short order we were back outside loading up the car.

The plan was she would take the bus home with the baby and I would drop her stuff off for her. I noticed she was upset again and trying to hide it. She admitted she didn't quite believe I would do that. It was a bad moment for both of us. Having no choice but to trust when trusting someone has not gone well in the past is not a comfortable place. I reassured her as well as I could just as the baby started fussing in earnest. Her stress must have been off the scale.

A short while later I left the stuff by the side door of the house where she lived and I drove off. But after a few minutes I decided to return and leave her a note. I told myself I wanted to make sure she got it all inside okay. Truth is I was worried if the stuff got stolen I didn’t want her thinking I’d done a runner!

When she opened the door she looked away and started crying again. I gave her a little hug and she wiped away at her cheeks and a smile came through. While we exchanged awkwardly expressed hopes for each other I looked around the tiny living area. Her daughter was happily kicking her feet in her high chair, smooshing something into her tray. The kitchen cupboards were partly open and they were bare as bones. I looked at the tidy apartment, at the tiny pile of presents under the little tree. She had so little. And yet there she stood in a sea of groceries, big smile, looking like she'd won the lottery. I adjusted my attitude to include more gratitude for the little things.

As I turned to leave I realized I didn’t even know her name.

“It’s Angela”, she said. "Angel for short". Of course, how could it be anything else?

Moving Day

I couldn't help myself. My inner cynic kept wise-cracking my favourite lines from Life of Brian:

A despondent Brian, left to take the rap: "Yeah, solll...idarity, Regg."
Or encouraging the mob outside his bedroom room window to think of themselves as unique: "You're all individuals!" Even as a lone voice in the crowd, the only real prophet, the one who gets it, responding: "I'm not."

And yet. . .

Today something happened to regular folks like me, to the 'general population' in these parts. Whatever it was sent me scurrying down Douglas Street trying to keep up with my indigenous friends. Something shifted, it was subtle, hardly felt but significant.

On top of all that I saw a group of Warrior Women take back their power even as they handed me mine. And I heard a sad woman say: "Once you see me, really see me you see yourself you know." Or words to that effect.

Maybe it really started with a young hero who set himself on fire and ignited the last straw in all of us, maybe not. All I know is since that horrible day we all first heard about that lonely death nothing's been the same.

Now, let's see about getting on with this. In the words immortalized by that hapless hero Brian: "Romans go home!"

Forgiveness

When I think about my sons and the mistakes I made raising them I often have to fight against suicidal ideation or wanting to hurt myself. The degree to which depends on the memory that percolated to the surface in that moment.

Forgiveness is not a concept I am able to grasp entirely, other than it involves a decision based on some kind of logic and is a process separate from our feelings. One thing is apparent, even to me: If I don't find a way to understand what it means to forgive myself, I will never be happy; and probably will continue to negatively affect my kids. As adults they know I am sad, but not yet parents themselves they don't believe me when I tell them it's not anything they do that makes me sad. I do that all by myself.

Wikipedia says:
Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and give up all claim on account of an offense or debt.'

Good ol' English dictionary circular definitions...use one word to define another and presume prior knowledge of both words. What does 'to grant' feel like? What does it mean? How does it sound, look like, where do I find it inside me? But the debt part I get.

And I love the sound of that word "concluding". All pain ends, it's what keeps suicidal-me going.

I think forgiveness means I understand I can't change the past. I was one person then, I'm a different person now. Forgiveness means I get it now and I've learned from my mistakes. I would not now even dream or think of doing (or allowing) any of the crap I put us all through. The "social" drinking (yeah right), the screaming, the poverty, the excuses, the passive-aggressive abuse from me: a frustrated, controlling, terrified enabler. Not all the time, but enough to make my kids think adults can't be trusted. That Moms are nice until they explode and Dads are well--that's his story to tell, I suppose.

There's no way I can ever expect forgiveness from my sons on my stuff without minimizing their take on it with what would only be lame-sounding excuses. Genuine? Irrelevant. If there's an "I'm sorry but..." there's no change in the behaviour coming so the apology is empty. My kids have well-developed bullshit detectors; If I want to be in their lives I won't get away with not growing as a person.

I can hope for their understanding of my mistakes to help minimize their pain. I'm so proud of them, watching how all on their own they are figuring how to get things a little bit better with their own lives.

I am learning how to cut myself some slack instead of some skin. As the moments of happiness creep back through parting, misted veils of depression I have hope. I don't have to stay stuck, defeated by only dulling the pain but instead I can conclude it. I begin to believe someday I will understand how to forgive myself.

Inside the Memory Box

Here's one story about yesterday:

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Hundreds+rally+better+mental+health+services/5384402/story.html

On September 10, in Victoria BC, about 300 people gathered in honour of Word Wide Suicide Prevention Day. The image you see here is our Memory Box, in which the intrepid Tara Timmers carried our hopes all the way from our adult psychiatric hospital to the lawns of the Legislature. Once there, many wrote messages, or names and other memories on scraps of paper, there was even a small photograph dropped into the box. I've read every one and was moved to tears many, many times. These scraps of memory will go to Ottawa in the envelope containing our petitions and letters. 

I've been working hard since then to make myself remember yesterday. I noticed about 4 or 5 hours after I got home the entire day (as is usual since I hit my head 6 years ago), had begun to disappear. In the same way a vivid dream that I think I couldn't possibly forget does after I wake up. I began to get those feelings of self-recrimination, fear, anxiety, depression replace the joy I could now only dimly sense had been there. It just wasn't fair! I really wanted to remember this day of all days and was annoyed at that part of me that had kicked in, seeming to want to punish me for feeling happiness.

It occurred to me I might have a chance to fix this if the memory issue is a chronic anti-stress response. That maybe I could train myself to remember. I spent most of the evening "walking" mentally through the day, from start to finish. I noticed there were vignette moments that had stuck, so I made myself logically go thru the missing sections with prompts from long term memory. Like picturing a particular street corner I am familiar with. 

It worked, sort of. I was able to bring back a lot of it. It's still got that TV effect but the images are there. And I am so thankful today for Daphne's, Hugh's and Erika's photographs to fill in the rest. The best part has been some of the good feelings I had in those moments came back, again, dimly and movie-like, kind of once removed but there. 

I tried a tactic I heard about from people who treat people like me with dissociative identities, or what I refer to in myself as my splinters. I had a long talk with that part of myself I theorized might be masking all the memories in order to safely block any dangerous ones. I used a commanding but motherly tone, speaking out loud about how it is okay to trust myself to deal with feelings, that an adult is in charge now. That the child in me could finally let go of her vigilance. This exhausted childhood part of me is where I think the more persistent post traumatic stress symptoms come from. 

I never had a functioning adult in my life as a child and only came into an understanding of what it means to be an adult once I got my addictions under control after the accident. Feelings are not something I access anymore for evaluating a given situation.

From some reason yesterdays exposure to all those people cut through to some deep wounding inside me. I felt completely at home with everyone there, it felt natural as breathing to speak to them and to have them speak to me. Not an ounce of agoraphobic reactions after a bit of nausea at the very beginning. 

The best part of the exercise in remembering was when the memories of watching the women speak came flooding back. I can "see" their hand gripping the microphone, "hear" their voices shake with emotion, I can "feel" their passion. Watching them as mentors: Denise Savoie , Hazel Meredith and Erika Rolston and reliving the experience of watching them will make my job easier to do now because remembering is learning. 

Timing

I suppose starting a Blog wasn't such a good idea right in the middle of organizing a major event to which 1,200 people are invited. Too bad. I absolutely loved thinking about and writing the first two (or was it three?) entries and have only limped by here today to beg your patience. Let's get this baby 'dots' thing and rally settled and then we'll see. Timing and balance, mutually dependent on each other for best results. Later!
P.S. These little turtles live near where I paint sometimes in summer, at a place called Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, BC

Taming the Dragon

This little fellow popped out onto my canvas one day years ago. Not sure where he came from, he's far from my usual style (and I almost never use orange when painting)...I thought of him suddenly when pondering today's entry--in honour of the Dragon Boat Racing Festival in town this weekend.

The dragon in this context symbolizes the Canadian mental health system. I can hear my favourite writing instructor at Camosun College saying "Jean, too big a subject! Focus! Focus!" Except she would not get excited because she also discourages excessive use of exclamation points (!)

Lack of focus in this system is the point. Focusing long term and effective resources on mental health will lead to a time when suicide is not considered an option many Canadians consider as treatment for mental health pain.

A dragon boat has 10 paddlers who to win must listen to the beat of the drummer in the bow. Every stroke in unison. The stern controls the direction the canoe goes in. The team of 12 people practise with a commitment that would exhaust an Olympiad. Why? For the common cause of beating the beast that is cancer forever into defeat while we celebrate the lives of survivors and lost cancer leaves in its wake.

It's not much of a stretch to imagine what good would come of a similar focus on mental health by our Provincial and Territory leaders.

Today the dragon's eye on each boat in our gorgeous inner harbour is painted red, to awaken the dragon. Our human chain on September 10, this World Wide Suicide Prevention Day, is our chance to paint the eye red, to awaken the dragon and get its attention.

Belief

Belief is so much more useful than hope. Hope easily dissolves under too much stress, whereas belief, by its very nature, can only grow. Hope disappoints, belief stabilizes. Belief knows, hope, well, can only hope.