Me, my dad, my son, a box, a meditation on joy and sorrow and a tune that floored me. Bargain.

Today I found in a dusty packed away box an old letter from my dad to my eldest son Samuel.

Maybe you’ve had that experience? Finding, with surprise, something that comes from someone you’ve loved and is now gone.  The way for a moment the world around you ceases to exist. The way perhaps, just for a brief pause, you return to a person you once were and have since left behind.

In the letter dad re-describes to four year old Sam the weekend they’d spent together and draws lots of funny scribbly pictures of their great adventures. It was obvious just how precious time with Sam meant to dad. There was a great and simple love between them.

Dad and my youngest son Luka

My dad didn’t always do the right thing by me, but shorn of the pressures of a young family he was a great grandfather. When he died (suddenly and without warning) I felt like a little boat, anchorless and rudderless adrift on a terrible storm pulled ocean.  My loss compounded by the fact that I would never have the relationship with him I craved.

A couple of months afterwards we moved to Ethiopia.  I didn’t just bury myself in my work but also buried  all the emotions his death bought. Put them in a box far out of heart and out of mind. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at pictures of my dad. I never mourned his passing or came to terms with what it meant.

As a young child I developed an ability, when feelings overwhelmed, to become utterly disconnected from this world.  I only came to understand this fully when a few year after dad died the hurt I was causing myself and those around me made me seek out help and I started therapy at RELATE.

There the box was opened and I was forced to face not just my dad’s death but also his treatment of me in life. All those awful things that had made me disconnect from the world came flooding back.  It was a terrible thing to go through and I felt more pain in those sessions and cried more tears then I thought was possible.  After a few months I couldn’t take anymore, I stopped the therapy and put the box away, needing time to breath, to escape.

A year later I returned to the same amazing counseller who helped me complete my journey, to understand and accept how my childhood experiences shape the way as an adult I relate to the world; that the split in my world will always exist, connection and disconnection. . It was, and remains to this day, the hardest and most important thing I have done in my life.

It’s true some boxes are best left buried because when you open them the raw emotion can be too much to take. I’m not a better person for opening my box, I’m not a stronger person either but I do understand myself a little deeper, and I think I understand a little better others who have had a similar experience too.

Before he died dad gave me Lebanese poet Kahil Gibran’s great book The Prophet. Some of you may not have read his wonderful meditation on life and death. This chapter from that book is for you then, and for those of you carrying boxes.  You are not alone, and maybe, if the time is right, reading this might give you a nudge towards seeking help.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Today this song from a father to his wife and autistic son floored me. If you haven’t checked out The Decemberists then you are missing a treat. Their last album The King Is Dead is one of the best records I’ve heard in years.