Annie from Life and Dandelions posted on the weekend about her the heartache she felt for her boys when she and her husband divorced. Those words leapt off the page and anyone reading the post would have felt heartache for her.
Lori from Random Ramblings of a Stay At Home Mum has blogged about her husband’s death and the aftermath of it all while raising two small children.
Or Jayne Kearney from The Best of All Possible Worlds blogged about her daughter Sienna and how her death actually pushed Jayne into pursuing her writing career.
Bianca Wordley from Big Words discusses depression.
We all have sorrow and pain in our lives. And it is generally these parts of our lives that can have the most impact.
Because when things are going along swimmingly then not much has to change.
But my question to you is, would you change anything if you could?
Obviously the death of a loved one…absolutely. No life lesson is greater than having that someone with you.
But what about all the other stuff? I know for me there is one thing I would change. I was immensely disappointed at the time and still am. I’m not sure it has made me a ‘better’ person for it. Maybe it’s too soon to tell.
In a recent post of mine I wrote how we manage to rationalise events and moosh them into a way to fit our lives because that’s how we stay sane when things don’t quite work out the way we planned.
As parents we try to shield our children from unnecessary heartache. Is there such a thing as necessary heartache?
But are we doing them a disservice? We all know that we need to let our children go out there and make their own mistakes and learn from them. But what’s too much?
This line of thinking has plagued me for quite a while now.
And no doubt parents will always make mistakes with their children.
But I suppose the difference is dealing the tragedy as an adult is different to dealing with it as a child. Isn’t this the catch 22? In order to deal with tragedy you need some experience with it.
For example, Dr Katrina Warren has said that a child who owns a pet that dies has the ability to deal with death a lot better in their adulthood.
Does tragedy have a place in our lives? Many people say that in times of tragedy we stop and reset. We take stock of what we have and we are thankful for all the good things that we may have taken for granted or simply ignored.
But again, is that just a reaction to a horrible situation; a reaction to help us stay sane?
We are who we are because of love, loss, tragedy, triumph. We are the sum of our total parts. To take one away, would undo all the rest. That’s what I tell myself; that’s how I stay sane.
Related post
Who am I? Who are you?
I think, even though this is probably a really bit example, the movie Sliding Doors kind of showed us that to change one thing sets off a chain of events.
It’s been making itself apparent to me lately that everything really does happen for a reason (I’ll make a contribution to the cliche jar in a second) but it is so true. Without talking to this person, you may never meet the next next person. Etc.
*bad example I meant. At work and trying not to get caught!!
Hi Bern,
I know it to be true. I think we all do but geez it takes a whole lot of character to get through it….which is probably precisely the point.
Thanks for the visit.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Sometimes I believe things happen for a reason, but sometimes I have trouble believing we have to go through so much crap to get to where we are going. I think there are things that I would change about my past, but then I kind of feel disloyal to ME – because those things have made me who I am.
Exactly, exactly, exactly. It’s like saying you don’t like who you are. And who you are is based on your experiences.
Thanks for the visit Bronnie.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Oh, Darlin.
What a time for this. I just found out my Dads in hospital. Hes in Brisbane, Im in Sydney. I dont know how much time I have but I know I gotta get up there because theres no going back from full time oxygen.
Ive said it to you before, I’ll say it again. We live in a natural world and are bound by its laws. Thats really all there is. Some of us make decisions – not even always conciously – to get in there no matter what and do what we have to do. Others decide to live their lives to avoid certain types of pain wherever they can and others fall somewhere in the middle.
Its not exact, this thing your asking. You could say, exposure to tragedy strengthens us, but you’d also find it weakens us. Its all individual, set at different degrees, thats why its called a big picture, and we just have to believe theres some greater energy in charge of all this smaller stuff because otherwise, its just chaos.
Kleo, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.
And you are absolutely right about the world we live in.
A friend of mine has a mantra for when things go wrong, little things like missing the traffic lights when you’re already late.
He says “everything is going along accordingly, just as it should be”. His logic is that obviously you had to miss the lights because getting through may have just meant that someone was going to rear-end you or something.
I hope you make it to Brisbane.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
YES! Exactly, I agree!
Another good one is ‘Let it all be as it is’ and ‘The world runs as it will, not as we would have it’
I can get there but the trouble is my old soldier says he’s fine now and no one should trouble themselves. Im scared he’ll keep up the brave face until its too late for me. I might go up in a few weeks, see how it goes.