The MESSAGE

It is definitely fall in Calgary now, lots of leaves in my backyard-in fact I was out raking them for the 2nd time yesterday and not cranky at all. I had worked all day as well as some overtime, so by the time I got home to Harley-my cute little bichon shitzu-I did not have a whole lot of daylight left but I knew from past experience that I needed to clean up those pesky leaves before old man winter drops his snowy flakes! I find it quite funny that I have no problem at all doing things without wearing the Ipod earphones that most everyone is sporting now-a-days; seems I don't have a problem with my aloneness and my thoughts whilst alone. This brings me to the message I am going to write about today.
As I was working away and totally enjoying the fall evening just before dusk set, my thoughts went back many years ago to a hard time in my life when I had left my husband. I walked out with 2 young sons who were 3 1/4 and 10 months of age. Not an easy thing to do but I knew it was the right decision for all of us. It was aprox 3-4 months after I left, and the boys and I were living in a "safe house", which consisted of about 10 apartments in a sort of huge house style apartment building. Hard to describe but I knew we were very safe there with lots of other women who were in the same circumstances and we were able to support each other. Lots of help and counselling were a part of this special place that I credit to this day.
To understand the "message" one would need to know some of my history which was very violent as a child. I grew up in the era where "children were seen and not heard" which is very hard to explain to the youth of today, but which my brothers and I lived with every day. Getting "the belt" was a regular occurrence for what we of course felt was any old offence, but a lot of our friends lived the same way so no one ever felt we were abused. In the laws of today we would of immediately been removed from the home for child abuse.

Living with my young sons in the woman's shelter was not an easy task. I was attempting to start a new life without my mate of aprox 14 years, and having never lived on my own let alone living on my own with 2 infants was a daunting task indeed. I certainly had a temper growing up the youngest of 3 with my 2 older brothers and was very used to fighting for everything, in fact I never learned that there actually was another way to do things--yelling, physical fighting and name calling is how things were handled as I grew up.

I was struggling with these 2 precious babes under these new circumstances and did not have the patience that I should of- what with trying to keep my youngest from keeping the whole building awake with his screaming, and with my oldest son misbehaving for most likely some minor issue. I should have had more patience but I didn't and I had a horrible day with the oldest one and I certainly believe I was rougher with him than I should have been-most likely on the verge of being abusive. I was most angry with him when I put him to bed and finally I was able to fall exhausted to sleep when I had the most vivid dream I have ever had in my life...I call it my "message"-from God? Who knows for sure, but that is what I firmly believe it to be. In my dream I was mad at my oldest son in his bedroom. It had 2 beds with an end table between them and I threw him hard and he flew across the room sliding on the floor-probably around 8-10 feet- to the end table which he hit his head on and then lay still-unconscious -but I thought dead. In my dream I ran to him as I thought I had killed him and held him and then I woke up. I can't now remember what I did next but I do know that this dream forever changed me and how I dealt with my anger with my children. It did not get easier raising them alone, but I knew I could not physically hurt my boys at all and still to this day I believe this was a message from God to me to save my children and myself from "myself". I believe that I was on a downward spiral at the time and did not know how to cope with all the tough changes happening and was doing what I knew how to do best which was not good enough at all. Funny, as I am not a hugely religious person at all but I do believe in God and have thanked Him many times. Every now and then as the years have passed I have thought of this dream and the huge change it made in my life and am so thankful that I acted immediately and changed my behaviour, and I am so grateful for having had the dream or as I have called it "the MESSAGE".