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Listen to My Heart...
By Wendy Wade
I have two beautiful, delightful, love-filled, incredible, gifted, Goddess daughters.
Today I write about my oldest daughter. She's about one month from turning 15. I adore her. I love her personality and her heart and her struggles and her growing and her tears and her becoming a woman and her genuine generosity and her love of children and animals and her aspirations. She is a great athlete, a published poet, and an excellent student. She is wise and deep beyond her years. She is the cause of much joy in my life.
Eight weeks ago, this dear sweet love of my life attempted to take her own life. I had just spent the weekend with her and two of her friends that spend a lot of time at my house. We laughed
and talked and had a great weekend together. On Sunday I left my eight-year-old at my neighbor's house and went to a Goddess luncheon.
As much fun as 3 teenage girls and two eight-year-old girls are on a weekend, I was ready for the company of some outrageously delightful adult energy. The afternoon was just what I needed. I found myself a little annoyed when I got home because Courtney was not there and I asked that she be home when I got there.
I phoned the neighbor to let her know I was home and to send Taylor (my younger Goddess daughter) home. I heard some hesitation in my friend and neighbor's voice and then she asked me to sit down,
she had something to tell me. My heart began to race and I could feel the blood leave my face as I braced for what I knew was horrible news.
Charlene, my friend, told me that Courtney, my daughter, was at Marin General Hospital.
My first thought was "car accident" - "Oh my God!" As my head began to swim, I could hear Charlene say in the distance, "Courtney attempted suicide." "This can't be…" I began to scream "What do you mean…" The scream deepening to meet the terror and the primal pain I felt. At that moment, I felt as if someone were tearing into my chest and ripping out my heart. I wailed and cried and tried to bring myself back to thoughts that would help me to reach my baby. I was to call the police; they were in charge now. No one answered my call. Between tears of anguish and screams of despair, I found my car keys. I screamed some numbers at Charlene to call so that two of my dearest friends could be there to support me when I got to the hospital. I got in the car knowing it would take great concentration for me to arrive safely at the hospital and without me doing just that, Courtney would be left to the care of strangers.
When I arrived, one of Courtney's friends and her mother met me at the door of the emergency room. I was surprised by the feelings I had. I wanted them all to just leave me alone. I
hated them for being there.
I did not want her or her daughter to come near me. Then, once again, I came back, to thank them and to ask them to please understand that I really could not talk to them at that time. They waited in the waiting room and I felt their support
I walked up to the desk and firmly announced that my daughter was in the emergency room and that I wanted to see her immediately.
My thoughts, for a moment, went to what they all must know about how terrible a mother I was. Those thoughts left me as I moved back into my heart and back to that moment.
They had a nurse meet me at the big
doors back to the ER and as we walked back to the rooms, she let me know that Courtney was not in danger. I think, in that moment, I took my first breath.
Around the corner stood a police man in front of the door where I saw my daughter sitting.
Her wrists were wrapped in bandages and I raced to where she was only to be stopped by the man guarding the door. He would not let me go in until he questioned me. I was seething. "That is my baby and I am going in there" I said as I pushed him aside and walked in to her open arms. I held her and we cried. I smelled her hair and felt her heart beat. I breathed in that fragrance I have known since the first moment she graced my life. I tried to envelop her inside my heart. I tried to take her back inside me to be safe. We cried and held onto one another.
The nurse told me that Court would be taken to the Crisis Unit. There were some papers for me to fill out and I could then go to the "Unit" to be interviewed. Courtney was on a
72-hour watch and would more than likely be held at the Crisis Unit for that time.
The Crisis Unit was a quiet sterile place.
There was another youth sitting in the waiting area as his parents waited for a time when they could speak with him. There was a psychiatric intake nurse and Courtney. I sat with Court until she was called for intake. She sat in my lap and snuggled before they called her. She wanted to go home and for the first time in our lives together, I could not take her there. She had given that right to the police and the intake nurse. I was angry with her for doing that and the wake up call for me was that she was not in my "control" any longer (my illusion was that she ever was in my control - my care - yes - my control - no).
The nurse took her into another room for the interview and as I looked through the shaded windows, I saw my two wonderful, incredible friends' right there to support and love us both.
I sat with them quietly not really knowing what to say but basking in the warmth of their love. I will never forget their being there for me, their openness, their non-blaming, their non-judgmental, their soft BEING there. We waited together for my turn in the interview room.
The nurse decided that Courtney could come home with me.
My greatest lesson in listening started at that moment. The days and weeks following that time have been devoted moment to moment to being available to "listen." The skills I had been learning all this time through my personal search into me and through my work with HAI are clearly a blessing as we take this into the future moment by moment and day by day. This is not to say listening is all I do because I have this need to be heard as well. One day I yelled at her at the top of my lungs "DO NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN!" and we cried. Courtney calls from school some days and just needs me to be there with her. I drive to school and sit with her sometimes saying nothing until she is ready to go back to classes or she says she just really wants to come home. That is when we go home.
We have become closer and closer and I share with her those things that I found confusing about being her age.
We talk very openly about boys, sexuality, integrity, building relationship, empowering one another, being a good friend, being honest and supporting one another, and building trust. She really wants to know and she really wants to know the truth. I tell her mine and I let her know that through experience she will find her own. The single most important thing I want to share with her is how to be true to herself - how to love herself. My life with her continues to take me deeper within me - to my truth. I truly believe that is what we are here to teach one another - what we are all here to teach one another - to go deeper to our own truth and to learn ways to share that truth with one another and with the world.
Namaste, Sweet Ones,
wendy "in flight" wade
WendysTym@AOL.com
BEING…LIVING…LEARNING…LOVE!!!!
Written and copyrighted April 6, 1999
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