Step up, step back To hope.
In terms of age, I think of Pathways now, in this lovely space, as a middle schooler. Before this, we met in a “cafetorium” of a closed school off of Hwy. 114. We stacked our own CHAIRS! You might call that our grade school period. Prior to that, Pathways was in the infant stages. We had only sporadic services, so for fellowship we formed small groups that met weekly in one another’s homes for fellowship, spiritual exploration and commiseration. We had an adult group, a families-with-small-children group and a families-with-school-age-children group. That was OUR group, roughly 5th – 10th graders. That explains the commiseration. My family includes my husband, Wayne and our two boys, Casey 18 and Mario 15. The group was very good at connecting with one another’s issues. Casey is our biological son and Mario we adopted at 13 years old. That was only two years ago, and it was just when we started these small group meetings. Mario was relatively new to us, new to Unitarian Universalism and so he was quiet at these initial Pathways small group meetings.
At this, one of the beginning meetings, the group was making a covenant of guidelines that would rule our behavior and encourage our relationship from that day forward. The adults came up with several ideas for how the group would behave: openly, politely, with consideration. In the middle of the group suggestions, our then shy, younger son said, “don’t try to blow out my candle to make yours brighter”
Another youth said “step up, step back”.
All these degreed adults looked at the children for definition. The youth explained, don’t say something that makes someone else look bad or feel bad just to light your candle, make you look better
and
“step up, step back”
Step up when no one in the group is taking the lead, step back when others have something to say.
The room paused, we all looked around. The wisdom of children. We used those lines from that day forward in most all of our small group covenants. I have found so many uses for both sayings, so many times they are appropriate.
“STEP UP, STEP BACK.”
Change, adversity, sadness, loss. Step up or step back. Which road to take. Life calls for both. There have been so many books written, so many sermons given and still so many lives struggling to make it through their challenging times.
There are happy life changing times and overwhelming stressful times. There are career challenges, parenting challenges, relationship challenges;
some expected, some sudden.
Sudden challenges, unprepared for, are more difficult.
Recently, the same younger son, Mario, said “I don’t want to live with you anymore.”
He said, “I may have made a mistake saying I wanted to be adopted into this family.”
It was a moment when I felt my heart breaking. The pain, nearly too much to bear. It was a huge, unexpected tragedy. It is the same pain I felt when my mother died. The same, “how does the rest of the world go on” with this horrendous tragedy encompassing my family. The same pain. My world stopped. So much grief.
Hope seems harder when something sudden, something monumental happens, something that you know you’ll have to dig deep to recover from. Something earth shattering or soul shattering. Something that takes time and work to find the hope and the path to recovery. After I heard Mario say those words I hurt, I wept, I recoiled, I was angry, then sad.
Then I took a step back.
Time to remember there must be more to this story. Time to step back to get the whole picture. Put this in perspective. STEP UP, STEP BACK
I imagine that an older, adopted child always feels on the edge. “Am I doing something they won’t like?” “Am I behaving like they expect?” “What is right?” “What is normal here?”
Mario realized that what he knew for the first ten years of his life was not right. It was not right to have drugs in the home. It was not right that he and his older brother raised their 3 younger siblings, changing diapers, finding food.
No father. Mother’s almost malicious neglect.
Gang life and drug addiction at 8 years old………….
He calls it his first life.
But this life… I imagine he frequently says, “How do I make this life work?”
“How to make relationships work?”
Too much to learn. Sometimes it must be overwhelming. He has to STEP UP every day. Step up to work on relationships and behavior every day.
Sometimes it would feel too hard to live with us. Too hard to transfer what he knows of himself from the first ten years of his life on Fort Worth’s north side, a life of gangs and drugs to NorthEast Tarrant County.
Sometimes it must seem reasonable to give up the love of this family, the security, the “things” and go back to a life that he knows. A flawed life, but a life he knows how to do. Deep inside he knows he can’t go back. And wouldn’t really want to go back……
None of us can go back.
Everything changes.
Step forward, step back.
As Unitarian Universalists we are encouraged to experience and study other spiritualities on our own jouney. Many of us seek the truth in many paths – all leading to the divine.
Along my path, a medium told me that Mario, my adopted child and I are related in a past life. Call it what you will but we do seem to connect together. We are both ready to step up to hard times, we strive for success, and appreciate those successes. We are hopeful, loving and generally have a happy nature and know that a sense of humor saves all.
We are also stubborn, impatient, and maybe too quick to feel hurt. Those of you who know Mario know that he has been very successful in his new life. A strong bond with his new family, good grades, star soccer player, and more friends than he can count including many here at Pathways.
In the end, we both had to step back to find our way. Mario and I both stepped back to the bigger picture. We know the bond is there between us. We know the bond is strong and will outlast this, outlast all the many trials.
But to realize this I need to take a step back. A step back out of myself and realize it’s not about me.
Mario took a step back to see that going back doesn’t solve anything. Going forward is all there is.
Going forward our family will step up to continue our work on our relationship.
Hope is taking a step back,….. gain perspective,….. then step up …. finding understanding,….. finding common ground,……… finding hope.
STEP UP, STEP BACK.
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All four of us are very close. We try to solve our problems by talking them through together. We eat together and even vacation together. So, it was a bittersweet separation as Casey, our older son and grease monkey graduated and moved off to Houston for school 3 weeks ago.
Hopeful, but still hard. One takes for granted while the children are growing up that they’ll always be there. Parents joke about how great it will be when they leave. All the time we’ll have alone together.
But then there’s the worry about how he’ll handle all those situations that will come up - on his own. What have I forgotten to tell him, to teach him? What choices will he make with the freedom he now has.
As I re-live the reality of the recent move, I walk through the house and thought of those final times.
In the kitchen, I open the cupboard to find no tea glasses.
I would think, …………was that the last time I could collect dozens of glasses from the bed of his trucks and all over his bedroom.
In the laundry room I would realize that I haven’t seen any of his clothes being washed and wonder if there is even a path left in his room through the clothes to the bed.
In the driveway I would wonder if this may be the last time Dad will get after him for changing the oil and leaving a mess of the driveway – oil and tools everywhere.
Throughout the house there are oil and grease marks to be cleaned off each wall, each cupboard, each sink! – for the last time?
In his eyes I could see the concern about the change in his life every time we talked about the move. But hope is fairly easy in this situation. He is growing up. It is a natural progression. It is very exciting, very hopeful. He is going off to study what he has loved all his life. He will do well.
His father and I have taught him what we could……….honor, integrity….
He has been in religious education in a Unitarian Universalist church most of his life. Our religion and our church have played an important role in laying the groundwork to guide him through life.
He strives to live the seven principals of Unitarian Universalism.
He names three of the principles that mean the most to him:
- free and responsible search for truth and meaning
- respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part
- inherent worth & dignity of every person
His commitment to these principles and the open minded, guilt free teaching he has heard in church all his life give me confidence that he is prepared to go. I also am comforted in knowing he has taken two units of Our Whole Lives or OWL – the Unitarian Universalist sexuality class. He has a well rounded education to take with him into this next phase of his life. With that, our family will meet this change, this challenge together. I take a step back and see the much bigger picture. It’s about Casey’s life, his new stage of life, his time to become independent, to begin the next chapter, to love and to learn, to see the larger world and bloom…..
He will step up to this challenge. I step back with pride and hope.
STEP UP, STEP BACK.
Hope comes from knowing he has Unitarian Universalist contacts in Houston.
Hope comes from unlimited long distance.
I believe that grief is the most challenging and for me the most difficult place to find hope. My mother was my best friend. Cancer took her life six years ago. I still grieve. The progression of the illness was painful. The realization that my father, a strong man, could not cope without her, was painful. She was gone.
We were always involved in one another’s lives. They never knew Mario, but they loved our son Casey, very much. Their only grandson that ever lived close. He would come home from grade school to their house where he would be greeted with hugs and snacks. We celebrated every holiday together. We were the only part of the family that lived near enough to do that. I threw them a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party with all the family, children and grandchildren flying in from all over the country.
Later, in the midst of breast cancer treatment we celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a fancier party, an oldies band and all the family and friends. We had just gone through the hair loss, the anemia, regular trips to the hospital for tests, for radiation, for chemo-therapy. She never complained. She stepped up and dealt with her situation.
My mother was simply the sweetest, most loving person I have ever known. She loved her family passionately. She thought of us always. She and I talked daily…. and about everything. She was the perfect friend, mother, grandmother.
My husband and I were her caretakers and then my father’s caretakers. The seemingly long ordeal was very difficult. Her death felt like my death. My heart literally felt ripped down the middle. The pain seemed unbearable. I grieved horribly for weeks, months. To this day I don’t handle mother’s day very well…. We have a simple day, at home. All these years later as things happen or I see something that reminds me, I will still think as I had once done daily, “oh, I’ll have to call mom and tell her about that”…. followed by a jolt of reality.
For me this grief recovery is a very slow process.
I floundered in this bottomless grief. I found some comfort in my family. I found some comfort in my friends. The breakthrough for me happened one Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist church we belonged to then, in Fort Worth. Their Sunday service generally included a joys and sorrows segment when the congregation was encouraged to lift up their challenges or accomplishments in the past week or so of their lives. I selfishly had always felt that this was a bit of a waste of time, believing that the sermon was the only valuable part of the service.
But one Sunday, I must have been open, ready, and was able to really listen to the joys and sorrows part of that Sunday’s service. I listened to the members dealing with their own issues. So many were larger than mine. Miscarriages, loss of jobs they couldn’t afford to lose, those who had retired losing of all of their pension, all were more tragic than my issue.
It forced me to step back, to step way back. To step out of myself.
All these people, all dealing with their losses, their grief. This is the way of life. Everyone’s life. It put things in perspective. This, my close group of friends had their own grief and sadness issues. It brought it all home, brought it full circle, take a step back. It is not just me, it is the way of humanity, it is human nature, it is part of life to live and lose and feel and hurt. And you have to find your way, your path, to the other side. That day at that Unitarian Universalist church allowed me to take a step back. Another step back. Step back to the be able to see the light at the end of this grief, to the hope that the grief will turn into only good memories. Memories of the happy, full and long lives my parents had. Hope is taking a step back,….. gaining perspective,….. then stepping up …. finding understanding,….. finding common ground,……… finding hope.
STEP UP, STEP BACK.
Step up when life calls you. Step back when you are challenged or rewarded.
I now find hope in knowing that so many of you, my fellow travelers of the path, are ready to step up and help each other through difficult times. In addition, our Unitarian Universalist principles allow me to feel comfort where I find it. Comfort in the fact that from time to time my mother or father comes to see me in meditation. That at the worst of times I may suddenly feel their presence around me, helping me, supporting me. Comfort in my belief that the universe is unfolding as it should. That my god, my spirit of life and energy becomes that bright light that I can cloak around myself, my family, my thoughts, my world knowing that others may be dealing with much more than I ever did: infidelity in a marriage, loss of a child, long term illnesses, addiction in oneself or others, or in dealing with your “first life”, your abuse or neglect. STEP UP, STEP BACK.
We must try to project the energy, the good, the Namaste, the spark of the Divine within, the bit of light into the world that may lead to the light at the end of the tunnel of pain.
This church provides us with the ability to OPENLY find our own way to the beginning of recovery. Find our own way to freedom of the path, the path of the light. This religion provides us the freedom to explore our own path. That will get us through the grief, through the pain, and on that path to the Spirit of Life. The path that will lead us to be more than we are now…. more that we ever knew we could be – to be ready to step up to our highest purpose.
Namaste.