Miracles on the path of God

This book that I am currently reading also talks about visualising putting down your worries one by one at the feet of whichever diety/God figure you choose and then saying a prayer of gratitude and closing your eyes to sleep for the night.

I religiously followed some of the principles noted in the book, literally chanting to myself "Let go let go Let God" whenever my mind strayed to thoughts of my Dad, my birth mother, what should I do etc etc; things that have no resolution and out of my hands. I prayed and focused on the task at hand - be it at work or with my kids and gave my full and complete attention to whatever I was doing at the moment. No multi tasking of thoughts.

And then Monday night, at around 12:30 am my cell phone rang. I was so deep in sleep that it rang for a long time and went to voicemail. It started ringing a second time and by the time I realised it, it had once again gone to voicemail. I looked at the number, it was eerily similar to my Dad's. I called him right away, half asleep half scared; a phone call in the middle of the night only evokes fear to me, and he confirmed the number and said it must be his wife calling! And that it was a good thing if she is calling and that she wanted to speak with me.

I called her back. She seems to be a very nice lady. We chatted for a bit. She had been confused with the time difference and hadnt realised it was the middle of the night here. She had many things to say, but mainly she wanted to reiterate that she had no ill wishes for me or any anger. She needed time to adjust; all these years had gone by so smooth and now I was on the scene. She felt her husband had changed since he met me. And it had disturbed the peace and happiness in their family. And so in a way she had blamed me. She said she was ready to accept me into their family. We are going to chat again tomorrow, to continue our discussion. I was numb with shock.

I was half asleep and numb now. I didnt know what to say to her. I apologised for having caused any trouble to her and her kids, she immediately said "Dont say Sorry, you dont have to be". I really have no plans/wishes to be a part of their family - Do I need another mother?? My Grandmother, birth mother, mother and now mother in law are all called Mother by me! Do I really need another one? I dont. I dont need another family. I dont wish to disrupt their life in any way. All I want is to be able to call my Dad whenever I want to, call him up and chat with him as per our convenience, once in a while. That was all I want.

I admire her and am grateful to her for taking this step. It is not easy for an older person to take the first step. I have seen so many stubborn adults who will not budge or take a step out of their comfort zone. But what has amazed me over and above everything is the new path I had started walking down on. The book said try to let go and you will experience miracles. I let go and did experience a miracle.

When I went back to bed, I couldnt sleep. I forced my mind to let go of all the future day dreaming and what ifs and different scenarios and calmed it down - said the Gayatri mantra a few times and went to sleep. And I did sleep. In the past I would have stayed awake and tossed and turned all night or woken up my husband to share the news with him immediately. Instead I looked at my sleeping (snoring) husband and my beautiful children and was overcome with peace and happiness. And brought back to the reality of getting a good night's sleep to be able to face the day ahead. And sleep I did...

I dont know whats coming next...what this will mean for my relationship with Dad, will my birth mother ever find out, but for now, I am going to keep myself in the present, celebrate the happy things, tackle the uncomfortable and enjoy with my family.

Let go, let go, let God

Many things have happened over the past few weeks. My birth mother got diagnosed with oral cancer and had to undergo a horrendous surgery which she is recovering from now. Thankfully by the Grace of God, the cancer hadn’t spread anywhere else in her body and she doesn’t need any chemotherapy or radiation. How did she get oral cancer? We do not know. Chances are slim for a non smoker non gutka eater, but she still got it somehow. Her husband is going through a bad patch – he retired and then cannot handle the sudden void post retirement and is grappling with depression. My mother is in anguish over why her younger sister has to go through so much pain and bad luck and feels guilty over her own “good fortune”.

Now two things here, Yes, my birth mom had a rough start with a divorce and subsequent husband who came with a not so desirable family who have hassled her over the years. Yes, my mom has a wonderful husband, my dad and all her kids have turned out good etc. But there is also the extreme differences in attitude – all my memories of my birth mom have been her being the victim, forever agonized over the treatment of her relatives/colleagues/life while my mother has always been super positive and optimistic, always looking at the good in people and believing in a happy outcome. I am currently reading this book “Joy peace pills” by J.P.Vaswani. He says in that book that if you think good, good will happen. Everyone says that. I know it’s not practical in most situations but what about the other situations, can you at least hope to look at the good side of things? Or can it happen that some person is just constantly riddled by bad luck and oppression?

Can you put your faith in something or someone and believe that next time would be in your favor and trudge on.

My birth dad’s wife has again told him to break off all contact with me, he is super busy at work and he agreed not to check his personal mail when home. Which basically means our only mode of communication is curtailed. By their joint decisions, we will drift apart with very little conversation between us. He does call me sometimes when he travels but between our time differences, work schedules, the fact that I have two young kids to take care of; it’s very difficult to find time to chat. And weekends are off limits as I am only to be restricted to his office times, which again is most of my night here. I felt really bad, cried some, then angry over how unfair this whole situation is, then self pity over how I am not free to be in touch with my own dad, and now acceptance. This is their joint decision. I can do nothing to change it, I can however change the effect it is having on me and instead of being miserable and punishing two beautiful babies and a wonderful husband for the actions of people who clearly do not think of my well being sounds stupid. So I am going to let go let go let God, let go of everything and let God handle it for me (again by JP Vaswani).

I have realized over the past couple of years that I cannot make others happy if I am not happy myself. I do not do the role of a sacrificing Mother India well. I need to take care of my own physical and mental well being first and then only can I be positive and smiling for others. So I am letting go of all the stresses – the guilt and complaints by my birth mother to my mother about how I do not have a mother-daughter relationship with her and how I constantly misunderstand her; my delicate relationship with my in laws, my heartbreak over my birth dad; I am going to let go of all of it, put my faith in God and let him handle it. I will focus on myself – my health and doing things that I enjoy and being happy and at peace and then making sure my husband and my children also walk the same path and are happy and peaceful and smiling and positive as they go through their individual lives and stresses and celebrations.

If you don’t already do it, try it too; take one thing that bothers you and let go let go let God…