Floating

So much activity surrounded these moments. It would be truly impossible for me to have the absolute accurate account, from a three year olds perspective. Much is bits and pieces from my parents..... the rest is my memory and my souls knowing.

I remember very accurately laying in my hospital bed, listening to the doctor telling my parents I would not make it through the night. I had a severe case of pneumonia, and had already been taken to one local hospital near our home and family doctor. He suggested to my mother it was time to bring in the big guns. On to Los Angeles Children's Hospital [That's where I was hearing this Doctor talking to my parents.] I felt my body leave..... I was watching them from under the crib- like bed. It seemed normal. My dad looked so sad. I still have a hard time talking about this. Allowing people to grieve.... feel the way they need to. Perhaps that is why I love Hospice. The need to understand grief, life, letting go....... death. To be with a person fully with your love. Your full attention in their most frightening times. Calm another's fears. Just be present.

What I saw and felt..... my mothers nothingness expression. It was as though I had already died. She was done with me. Simply had moved on.... gone. No one was home anymore, in her eyes. It is unbearable to express these feelings as I write. I searched her face. Hold my hand mommy. Tell me everything is going to be okay. Don't leave me...... I'm not gone yet, look I'm still here. Daddy is crying.

Am I not worth a tear drop. No emotion ...... I searched, I scrutinized through my three year old eyes. Off I went ....... further and further away. Soaring over the other children on the ward.

I saw each and of every one of them. Some with with cancer, leukemia. Other's who were dying. I knew.....something in me had changed. I could feel their pain, loneliness, fear.

I looked into their eyes as I floated.

It was unbearable. The worst part is ....I could feel who was going to die.

I have been put under hypnosis many times. Through the years I've had nightmares and visions

I couldn't get out of my head. It all came out finally when I was ready to accept this part of myself. I denied it, didn't like it. Felt like a true freak. I went to Hypnotherapy School.

I studied what the mind was capable of. I have never stopped.It fascinates me. That is my guilty pleasure. I can't get enough information crammed into my brain. Learning how our brain works.... how everything is related. I realized, much later of course..... through many years of therapy and self education...... it was way too scary for me to hear that Doctors

diagnosis that night in the hospital. I needed my mom to comfort me. That wasn't going to happen. I just went away instead.

I have been able through the years to see those kids faces..... as I became an adult. I allow myself to watch now. The pain is searing..... to see their aloneness. To truly feel it, and embrace it. I have always been extremely sensitive, feeling others emotions. Usually to my detriment in the past. I am learning to love this side of me that taps into people, instead of rejecting it. It is all part of my tapestry that makes me...... me.

I have learned only recently about illness and myself. I have had one form of illness or another my entire life. I have had an unbelievable fear of death with illnesses, that have not always been complex. Even things that were simple, I overreacted.

I have spent a lot of my days in Doctor's offices. Just in the past year or so..... I think I am

beginning to crack the Clare code. It comes in a couple of forms. Knowing.... accepting with

all my being that I have a right to be on this planet. My mother simply did not know how to show love. I was worthy of love....... but was a tender hearted little girl who needed her mommy. I lived my life looking to people.... for acceptance....... please love me.

I beg you, as though my life depended on it. To that three year old, it did. I am learning to fill up that hole...... those deep wounds that started so young. Misperception. My mom still is who she is. She will never be what I need.... she is what she is. She will always be the child. I have to reach out to, hug, risk...... she cannot, will not..... too much damage..... I don't know. I don't even think I care anymore. My illnesses have kept me from really living...... fully. I have needed to forgive myself. Whatever I saw with those children, in the hospital: it haunted me that I lived.

I cannot explain the feeling I have in my soul.... the knowing. Children have always been my priority. Mine..... my kids friends..... volunteering. Up at my kids school. Still now...... adult children, the worlds children. Whatever I felt was so painful then, is actually coming full circle in my life. I have not wanted to bring that side of myself forward. Feeling so deeply. It is agonizing sometimes. I don't think I would have it any other way now. The gift I am learning my mother has given me...... what I have felt a lifetime of rejection from her. I push through situations like nobody's business. Having her for a mother ...... it's like the best possible training ground

for wanting to achieve the impossible. Everything you say to her is going to be answered with a negative..... a rebuttal. Questioning yourself, dragging your ass out.... and wishing a car would run over you. Yet I wanted that woman's approval more than you can imagine.

She is old now, her life is winding down. She has a very good heart and means well.

I don't want to hurt her. I want to heal the rifts we have had through the years. I have tried endlessly. I think I have over thought this one. She is who she is. I have not accepted her. I have been very angry at her. I have tried to change her..... show her. I know writing this..... I have wanted payback. Passive aggressive of course. For all the digs, cruelty, low blows..... I liked getting her where she lived. Not having love in her life. She would try to make me feel as though it were a sin.... or I were a criminal that Ray loves me so much. That I was lucky.

She would pull out every punch. I did not understand..... until this moment, she spoke so deeply of her own wounds. I am humbled. I am not proud. I do not have a tie up happy ending to this story. It is just a story. What a three year old learned, when she overheard a Doctor speak of her demise.... to her parents. I simply went floating.