Imprinted

January 30, 2017Vonita 14 Comments

I took your hand within my own

And held it softly while you cried

My heart leapt out to dry your tears –

Your pain imprinted on my soul

Empathy

November 29, 2016Vonita 14 Comments

Yesterday I was upset with my son for getting his punctuation wrong. I am always such a bossy mother, telling him to do this, do that, do the next thing. Please.

This evening I came home in tears. Always feeling a failure, never really fitting it, being socially awkward and introverted. Being technically weak in a technical role.

My son came and sat with me in my room. He rubbed my back for me and comforted me. The others in the house continued what they were doing.

And I thought to myself. My son’s heart touched mine. He entered into my pain. He had and has always had a special gift of empathy. We are born with souls. Sometimes it gets crowded out. At the end of the day, who cares about punctuation? What does it really matter?

Empathy

October 6, 2016October 6, 2016Vonita 5 Comments

Sometimes, when confronted with something bigger than I can comprehend, my mind automatically reverts to details. Immediately after my mother passed away, when at the time it was so sudden and unexpected, my mind went into survival-mode. What are the next steps? What to do now? My mind focused more on practical day-to-day living than on the fact that I had lost my one and only mother. When I stopped to think about it, my pain was around the fact that I would never hear her voice again. I often have dreams where I am trying to call her and she doesn’t answer the phone. Or she doesn’t want to speak to me. Her voice is not heard.

A colleague is going through a difficult time. I immediately went into survival-mode, and became detail-driven. How did it happen? What next? What did you do? What are you going to do? He said to me, it would only be from you, Vonita. All these questions, and lack of subtlety.

Perhaps it is a lesson to just be still. To feel the pain that others feel. To have a heart that is soft. To allow myself to feel my own loss and pain. To have empathy.