As an active member of this 12 Step fellowship I do and have sponsored many many persons.....especially after nearly 4 decades of being here. I have seen many come and go and I remember each and every one of them.
Time is moving along in life and many of my sponsees are older and are even having grandchildren or great grandchildren. It is such a privilege to watch them grow and become so open, free and happy in life. Of course this also means that many of them are getting to age as I am that maybe our days on earth are waning. I feel that a terribly big great part of me moves along when one of them makes their transition.
Over the years I become so close to my sponsees that I feel a great loss and do have the need to grieve their passing. I am so privileged to have a 12 Step program to do this in. The impact is somewhat abated and life is a little easier. These feelings are totally different from those of a sponsor passing away.
All 8 of my past sponsors have been an intricate part of my life. I held and hold them all in very high esteem. They were and are gentlemen and gentle men. Of the 8 there are I think 4 still living I think. These men gave so much of themselves to me over the years and I trust I will never forget that. That is why I try to give it all back to my sponsees.
For my loving friend and sponsee Bette who appears to be in her final transition I can only think of the phrase we spoke of so much and felt so deeply about..."...yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for thou art with me." My life has been so enriched for the last 16 years of your 34 years in this fellowship. You have made my life seem just a little more complete. It is said; "love and be loved", you dear Bette are the epitome of that philosophy. As I travel to say goodbye to you Tuesday I bring a message of ITS eternal love for you. I just pray that I can find the words and feelings to let you know this.
Love and Light,
richard
Showing posts with label friend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friend. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
The loss of a loved one....I am learning at last!
It seems to me that in my early days of life I kind of blocked out most feelings of loss for people. the earliest I can remember is 7 years old and that was to shape much of my life if not all of it.
My maternal grandfather as I viewed him was the only person in life whoever paid attention to me. He made sure that he spent time on our farm and let me ride his huge "clydesdale" horse. He as my only real description of love at the tender age of birth to 7 years old. When he made his transition I was forced to go up to the casket at the viewing and touch his hand and say goodbye. I was saying goodbye to love, that hurt. It hurt so bad I think I never really knew the true feeling of love until 32 years old. During that run of 25 years I not for once felt the feelings of warmth and compassion as I had with him. Not even with the mother of my children nor my own mother. I truly was a broken person.
When I was introduced to the 12 Steps I did not read nor here anything about how my interior love system was gonna get fixed. I knew that my drinking problem was gonna or actually had stopped. I knew that I would clean up my insides and head, but what of the most important item I had been missing all these years? A definition of love to work from for my life. A feeling of wellness from the world, a feeling of being wanted for me myself and nothing else. It was not humanity around me that was failing, it was me and I saw nor heard a solution. All this changed one day when a man stood in his Truth at a podium in the Lutheran Seaman's Mission in Olongapo, RP. and said to me; "I don't care where you have been nor what you have done, I love you for where you are seated at this moment". Obviously I was setting in a 12 Step meeting. This man was obviously much larger in his caring for humanity than anything I had seen in the 12 Step program yet or since I stood beside my grandfather.
While the underlying principles of this program indicate a repairing of many things, I could not dare to hope for a total repair of my loving system. This task was far greater than what I had seen thus far in this program. I would go on in life and find out that there is a loving humanity in life that would aid me or anyone in learning how to love again. While I kept getting told about a power greater than myself could return me to whence I came, it was far easier to see it in my fellow man. I was to find out they were one in the same.
It was a monumental achievement for me to actually begin to care for and have some form of love for anyone which included myself. As the years have went on and I was able to be shown the way to return to that which I was at birth, a loving entity of all things. I truly began to enjoy life and people. This for me was far beyond anything promised me at the beginning of my 12 Step life. I had considered this far beyond the scope of any12 Step program. My promises began to be fulfilled at a personal level which I had not expected. Today I now know not to have expectations of others but to simply accept them at face value. I am now capable of demonstrating outside of me that which is inside me, the power of love from my HP.
As life has moved on with me in tow, I am being shown the way for me to lovingly, miss, mourn and continue to hold in love those which are departing from this earth plane from me. In recent years my own mother has transitioned just behind a beautiful woman who was my sponsors wife. They were my chance and time to step up and help those around me and to sit with my feelings and not have to do anything other than feel numb for a lack of understanding.. Reaching out to others in time of need seems simple as long as I remember that it is the "what of me" which is doing the reaching out.
I started this blog entry with the notion that for most of my life I did not know nor did not care to know when, how or where to love. My HP in the form of other people has demonstrated this life lesson to me. Just for today I do have a clue about others and I think they are just swell. I guess this is one lesson that is larger than the 12 Steps or least from my perspective it has been. It has taken, inside, outside, divine, village and many other kinds of help to get me to this point of life. Just for today I will accept help from any positive avenue, it's all my HP in disguise anyway.
This blog entry is dedicated to Dan and all those beautiful ladies over in Cranston Pl...."may your sorrow be short and your love long", thank you for showing me the way.
Love and Light,
richard
My maternal grandfather as I viewed him was the only person in life whoever paid attention to me. He made sure that he spent time on our farm and let me ride his huge "clydesdale" horse. He as my only real description of love at the tender age of birth to 7 years old. When he made his transition I was forced to go up to the casket at the viewing and touch his hand and say goodbye. I was saying goodbye to love, that hurt. It hurt so bad I think I never really knew the true feeling of love until 32 years old. During that run of 25 years I not for once felt the feelings of warmth and compassion as I had with him. Not even with the mother of my children nor my own mother. I truly was a broken person.
When I was introduced to the 12 Steps I did not read nor here anything about how my interior love system was gonna get fixed. I knew that my drinking problem was gonna or actually had stopped. I knew that I would clean up my insides and head, but what of the most important item I had been missing all these years? A definition of love to work from for my life. A feeling of wellness from the world, a feeling of being wanted for me myself and nothing else. It was not humanity around me that was failing, it was me and I saw nor heard a solution. All this changed one day when a man stood in his Truth at a podium in the Lutheran Seaman's Mission in Olongapo, RP. and said to me; "I don't care where you have been nor what you have done, I love you for where you are seated at this moment". Obviously I was setting in a 12 Step meeting. This man was obviously much larger in his caring for humanity than anything I had seen in the 12 Step program yet or since I stood beside my grandfather.
While the underlying principles of this program indicate a repairing of many things, I could not dare to hope for a total repair of my loving system. This task was far greater than what I had seen thus far in this program. I would go on in life and find out that there is a loving humanity in life that would aid me or anyone in learning how to love again. While I kept getting told about a power greater than myself could return me to whence I came, it was far easier to see it in my fellow man. I was to find out they were one in the same.
It was a monumental achievement for me to actually begin to care for and have some form of love for anyone which included myself. As the years have went on and I was able to be shown the way to return to that which I was at birth, a loving entity of all things. I truly began to enjoy life and people. This for me was far beyond anything promised me at the beginning of my 12 Step life. I had considered this far beyond the scope of any12 Step program. My promises began to be fulfilled at a personal level which I had not expected. Today I now know not to have expectations of others but to simply accept them at face value. I am now capable of demonstrating outside of me that which is inside me, the power of love from my HP.
As life has moved on with me in tow, I am being shown the way for me to lovingly, miss, mourn and continue to hold in love those which are departing from this earth plane from me. In recent years my own mother has transitioned just behind a beautiful woman who was my sponsors wife. They were my chance and time to step up and help those around me and to sit with my feelings and not have to do anything other than feel numb for a lack of understanding.. Reaching out to others in time of need seems simple as long as I remember that it is the "what of me" which is doing the reaching out.
I started this blog entry with the notion that for most of my life I did not know nor did not care to know when, how or where to love. My HP in the form of other people has demonstrated this life lesson to me. Just for today I do have a clue about others and I think they are just swell. I guess this is one lesson that is larger than the 12 Steps or least from my perspective it has been. It has taken, inside, outside, divine, village and many other kinds of help to get me to this point of life. Just for today I will accept help from any positive avenue, it's all my HP in disguise anyway.
This blog entry is dedicated to Dan and all those beautiful ladies over in Cranston Pl...."may your sorrow be short and your love long", thank you for showing me the way.
Love and Light,
richard
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