Actions speak louder than words

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.”
J. Willard Marriott

My friend Heather and I talked for the first time in about six months today, her brother (who is in my team) remembered to pass on a Christmas card from me to her, only this morning. I had written something along the lines of, "I am so happy to have you as my mate, people like you make life worth living. Chicks like you are rare". She e-mailed me to invite me to have lunch with her today.

We ate our lunch and then we went up into the parent’s room, where she expressed milk into a baby’s bottle with a breast pump for her baby girl. I am normally very clucky about babies and kids but that was a bit too much reality for my liking. It looked positively torturous.

She had her baby at the end of last year, after working long hours on two project teams. She started to feel poorly at work and we sent her home. Sure enough, although she was only 25 weeks pregnant she had gone into labour. The terrible thing is that not only was the birth stopped and started a number of times but her and a number of other mothers and babies were exposed to some sort of bacteria, which has left a number of babies, including her own child profoundly deaf.

I had told her long ago about my former life working with kids and one baby in particular Tim. His mother had been exposed to measles and Tim only had 10% of his hearing in one ear. One day she came to pick him up from me and I was reading him a story. She burst into tears. I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong. She said, "I have never read Tim a book because I didn’t think he would be able to understand".

I asked her to think back to when she was a small child, prior to her being able to speak or read. I said, remember your mother would point at the pictures and say the words to you. You would look up into her eyes and yes, you would hear the sounds of the words but you would also be watching her mouth. Tim may not hear the sounds but he understands as he watches your mouth. I showed her, I would point at the pictures and then I would tap him on the shoulder and move his face towards mine to mouth the word.

“A mother’s example sketches the outline of her child’s character.”
Mrs. H. O. Ward

As he grew older, when he wanted to communicate with me, he would tap me on the arm or shoulder and move my face towards where he wanted me to look and he would point.

Later on, when Tim had grown into a toddler, his mum came by to pick up him during a time when we were doing music with the kids. He was holding some sort of musical instrument and was bouncing at the knees. Again, she was a little surprised that we had included him in a music activity. In the background a teacher played the piano and the kids were beating drums, xylophones, triangles and other instruments. I sat his mum down on the mat with us and told her to feel the vibration as the kids were jumping up and down. I had not seen her beam a smile like that for a long time.

Tim is now a teenager at high school, he has a cochlear implant with some hearing now, and he has been the dux of his year, every year in the mainstream schools he has attended.

“Nothing is as strong as gentleness, and nothing is as gentle as true strength.”
Ralph Sockman

When I found out about Heather’s baby, I didn’t remind her about that story. She was devastated and she needed time to let the reality sink in. She had to come to terms with unfairness of the situation of what might have occurred at the hospital (possible negligence).

Today, we talked about the people we knew who had overcome some sort of adversity that had inspired us.

I told her about my friend Andrea, who as she was preparing to give birth to her second child, found out that both she and her baby had life threatening cancerous tumors. Her baby had to have many operations once she was born, including the insertion of a shunt in her head. Andrea told me that everything else in her life then became insignificant. It was about her and her baby surviving, for her husband and other child’s sake.

“True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.”
Henry Miller

I am happy to say they are both alive and well two years later. Andrea made a decision when all of that was happening. She was going to focus only on the things that mattered. It wasn’t about making more money, or climbing the corporate ladder, or about renovating her house, or looking good, or doing or going to things that she didn’t feel like doing or going to. She said no to things, unless her and her husband really wanted to spend time with people outside of their immediate family. If people didn’t like it, she realised that they were not truly friends.

Heather said that she had realised the same thing from her experience. The big learning for her, that she wanted to impress on me is that we work to live.

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.”
August Wilson

When I came home tonight, I lay down on my bed and it would have been very easy to have an afternoon nap but I sat up, changed in my walking clothes and trainers. I walked hard for an hour up and down the hills in my neighbourhood. I reminded me of those hills in <st1:city w:st="on

“>San Francisco, unrelenting but great architecture to get your mind off the hard work. About ten minutes into the walk, the clouds moved in again and it rained hard down upon me. At this point I was glad I was wearing a black t-shirt.

I remembered people telling me that walking or exercising helps depression. That is easy to say for people who have not been so depressed that they find it even hard to get out of bed. I did feel fantastic as that rain poured down on me. I can thank my medication for giving me the release from depression that allows me to have the energy to walk.

I have just remembered now that lady telling me that I would be able to time to relax my mind and talk to my late brother while I walked. I might try that tomorrow.

I am going to try to fall asleep early tonight (half midnight) so that I don’t sleep in again tomorrow. Unfortunately, I am addicted to this writing caper and find that I am having trouble sleeping during the night now, if I don’t expel some of my thoughts.

Gratitude for three things:

1.      That I think about writing all day. I can’t wait to get home to read my faves and write in my diary. Reading about your lives gives me strength to know that there are some good people scattered about the world.

2.      Rediscovering my friendship with Heather and hopefully other friends I lost contact with when I was in the midst of depression.

3.      I am looking forward to the events I am going to at the Sydney Festival this month. I will be seeing some contemporary dance, theatre, including Ralph Fiennes in a production of a Samuel Beckett play. Yum, on that note, time for bed 😉