Some thing special

Something so special happened today.  Mum and I got a visit from my only niece and her son who we see so rarely.   I had had a very close relationship with my niece many years ago but our relationship fell apart due to certain issues which were a cause of such sadness and I was still holding onto some pain and fear.  But today we found out how she has been struggling with her parents and her father, my brother is emotionally unavailable in the extreme and his wife is a very narcissistic person who has caused a lot of pain in our family.   Luckily today my niece was able to unburden some of her pain with Mum before I arrived and to offer her care and love following the lost of her best friend as well.  I wanted to give them as much time alone as I could as I knew how important a relationship between a grandchild and her grandma is.  I was never close to my own grandmother on Mum’s side and only met my other grandmother once when she visited from Holland in 1964 when I was 2 years old.

Arriving to see my niece today I saw all of her beautiful qualities, she is a very gentle, kind, warm and deeply sensitive person and so is her son.   But sadly the pattern of emotional abandonment of our family has meant her son is now abandoned by his own father who wants nothing to do with his son, that is why having a relationship with him is so important now.

It is so sad to me how these patterns tend to carry on in families.  My niece has been struggling for some years and its hard now as she lives a long way from our home town.  I think Mum and I are secretly praying she would come back.    But just to have some time with her today on good Friday was so special.   After leaving her Jasper and I went to have some lunch then went to the park were we caught up with some very lovely friends, the sun was streaming down and there was a gentle breeze and as we sat there I felt so grateful that I had come through a few very tough days last week.   My godmother died just before Easter and my sister’s death anniversary is on the way, but I don’t feel that terrible emptiness and sadness as much this year as I have in last years.  One of the worst was the first years after Jude died, Mum was in hospital and my other sister had major depression.  I remember how suicidal I felt at the time, how some days it was so hard to get out of the house, and I had almost constant panic attacks.

I still had a panic attack this afternoon.  I seem to always get them at the same time of day.  I was remembering some painful things from the past that had occurred.  I am more aware these days when the darkness descends and tries to lay claim to my soul.  My niece was speaking about her own tendency to isolate and I am coming to believe that there is something in our family, a depression that has been carried by the female side.  And its strange this morning at about the time my niece must have been sharing with my Mum I was at home and started to feel very strange then I had a compulsion to clean my house at the same time as feeling the need to get out.  I fell to my knees and I was crying and these words came out of me ‘I want my Mum, I want my Dad”.  I didn’t think about it until just after I left Mum’s place, and she told me of the pain my niece had been sharing.   Had I picked up something psychically?

I hope that my relationship with my niece can start to grow again.  I have missed her very much in my life. I wanted to share about it in my blog as so often I share the painful things but what happened today was such a special Easter gift and I really treasured it.  I actually ended up having a really lovely Good Friday.  I really hope that others out there have had a special Easter too.