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Archive Number 3586 | ||
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Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 02:24:41 EST
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hello, this discussion is wonderful and i enjoy reading it, but i haven't had anything to add to the discussion until now. it's about processing life's story through video. it will be almost a year since my husband drove down to the local fire station, and in the presence of a fireman shot himself through the heart. lately the grief has been powerful and tonight I watched home videos. i don't watch tv, and i was born before videocameras became the norm for filming life's story. so it's sort of amazing to me to watch. my three and soon-to-be-six-year-old have been watching them, witnessing their life with father, but it wasn't until my sister came over and was watching them that i took the time to sit and review them. it was a powerful review of the last three years of my life, all the difficulties and joy. it included my mother's death in october 2001. i videotaped her life before she died. i video taped her on her death bed, in a state psychiatric nursing home. she was a difficult mother, mentally ill to the extreme. i had not watched her and the tape until tonight, and so much spoke to me about understanding my mother through her tortured own story, understanding my life, myself. it's as if her words rang clearer to me, fit into pieces of the puzzle of my own life's dream. it's as if i was watching my own reality tv show. and i'm the star. i'm digesting my life's story through self examination as the result of trauma. it's been healing. however, i noticed in my mother's interview, i'd ask her about life growing up with her family. she vehemently didn't want to remember. i didn't push it. my children, however, ask about their father. my 3-year-old daughter sees her father's mythic image on tv, and asks why daddy died. since she's been watching she has been telling other people about her father. "my daddy died," "i'm going to get a new daddy." she says to people. somehow, i feel she is processing this in a positive way, looking back at the story, and understanding her life without her father, and noticing that other people have fathers. i talk to her about it. a friend was over. my daughter said, "i don't have a daddy." and my friend said, "I don't have a daddy either. he died too." as for my son, he alwayw says he's happy. we talked about the death in the early days and weeks, we made a dia de los muertos alter for all souls day (my children are hispanic) tonight during the videos he said with a smile, "i'm going to shoot myself." it was scary for me to hear from him, but i flusterdly told him something i'm sure was wrong to tell a six year old about suicide. because i didn't know what to say. spaulding gray is missing. perhaps a suicide. his mother killed himself at 52. i desperately want to protect my boy, my daughter. i don't know what to say, but i don't want to cut off discussion. i want this story to be resolved by understanding the back story, even if it's difficult. somehow i hope that by seeing and talking about my husband's story live and on video as they grow up, my children will somehow turn out ok. it makes me wonder, what if we stopped watching "reality" tv and started looking at the reality of our own story. start the video tape machines. rambling at midnight in colorado. sydney Sydney Solis Storyteller Stories Spoken Hear www.SydneySolis.com Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. --Carl Jung ------------------------------- To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu ------------------------------- | ||