1097 (30) NO! NO! NOT AGAIN! REVISITED 40

Here's a photo of an ostrich so deep in denial as to see itself as a flamingo!
(If you're curious as to why that sentence was written, please check back in a few days.  My blog must have a mental block against holding onto this photo, because each time I copy it here, it shows up and disappears. Now you see it.  Now you don't.  Though I have no clue as to why that's true, given time and positive focus, my think tank tank will figure this out and create change for the better.)

30
2002
... Mom, would you say that people were helpful or hindering to your recovery after Janet died?”

“Well, some of both proved true.  After we lost Janet, people who loved us were very kind, but many who meant well, made serious mistakes.  Some people thought they could help us by hurrying our grief, but that just created frustration. Others with good intentions made comments that deepened our frustration.  All we really needed to hear was, ‘I’m sad for your loss.’ It felt terrible to hear people say we were ‘lucky’ she was so young.  When you lose a child, the word ‘lucky’ makes you see red.  One day, fury burning inside me really fired up.  I discovered that one of my brothers had thought to 'help me' by destroying Janet’s photos.  And to this day, I’ll never understand what possessed Dad to watch Janet’s autopsy, but he’d felt compelled to do that, so he did.”

(As I'd known that to be true for years, I'd had the chance to ask Dad how he could have done that.  His response:  I don't know.  I just had to be there if they found out what took her …")

Over the next several seconds we swing pensively, back and forth, before Mom goes on:  “We each grieve and heal in different ways.  The way each person needs to heal isn’t easy for others to understand.  In fact, it’s not easy to understand ourselves.  All I have left of Janet, today, is one small, creased, black and white photo that my brother overlooked.  And here we sit, Annie, you and I, talking about Janet more than fifty years after she died—and even now, from time to time, I take that creased photo out of my dresser drawer and look at it, because something inside my heart needs to see her face.  Every few years, I find myself wondering what kind of life Janet would have chosen had she had the chance to grow up.

Listening to the impact of inconsolable loss, flowing freely from within Mom's psyche, catches me off guard as I surmise that certain losses are too great to expect a person to fully recover—just as when a damaged nerve remains painfully inflamed, because nerve damage is not reversible—at least not yet—though one day, when stem cell research is widely accepted, advances in the field of medical science may offer a person with nerve damage relief—Gosh!  Wouldn't it be great if that advance in stem cell research occurs within our lifetime?  To live free of pain remains a personal dream.  As you can see, hope springs eternal when stream of consciousness processes calmly through positively focused channels of the mind ...

PS

Once again, the wonders of positive focus win my smile!  I was about 
to push publish when the image of the ostrich (flamingo?) reappeared, and if you ask:  Why does it come and go?  I'd reply:  I have no clue!  Whoops!  It's gone, again ... Oh well ... I'll not lose sleep over a mystery as minor as this ...