although I was a little turned off by the buddhist idea at first the
post was great thanks Evelyn...it helped

Evelyn:
Hi Ronny,
That was a beautiful and heartfelt post,
and I fully agree with it
philosophically, and in case anyone
missed anything, I haven't snipped a bit
of it (above).

Ronny:
Thank you. :-)

Evelyn:
Since it is appropriate and definitely
ON TOPIC here (lol!) I want to continue
talking about my father who is now 92
years old and suffering from
insufficient blood supply to his brain,
who was the subject of my original
posting in this thread.   I would like
to recount another story here.
This very morning I was awakened by my
brother who called very early, extremely
upset from being abused viciously by my
father this morning when he got up to go
to work.
It is unfathomable to all of us, how
this man, in the last years of his life
continues to be cruel and abusive to all
who love him and are around him.
We keep telling my poor brother to say
to himself;   "half a brain, half a
brain" because my fathers vascular
insufficiencies are only giving him half
the blood he needs to support full
mental function. One carotid artery has
a stent in it, and the other carotid
artery is closed up completely with NO
blood flow and they are afraid to touch
it.   So there are some serious issues
involved, and at his age, who knows how
long he has left?
After doing my best (still half asleep)
to comfort my poor brother, who is in
poor health himself, I finally told him
this story, which he seemed to take some
comfort in.

Two monks were traveling along a road
together.   It had just rained, and the
two monks came upon a rain swollen
stream and there was a pretty young
woman fretting because she was wearing a gorgeous kimono and she could
not cross the stream without ruining it. (Now you know that monks are
not supposed to have anything to do with women....)
Without saying a word, one monk picked
her up and gently deposited the grateful
woman on the other side of the stream
and all continued their journeys.
The two monks continued walking and the
one monk was visibly annoyed and huffy.
The monk who had helped the woman
ignored it.   Finally after some time he
asked him what was his problem?
The monk said "you picked up that woman
back there, and etc. etc. etc."
The other monk said to him; "I put her
down on the other side of the stream,
you are still carrying her!"  

Ronny:
That guy made a very good point there. :-) And the one who got so
annoyed was a selfrighteous legalist who obviously believed in sticking
to the letter of the law; but knew nothing about the spirit of the law!
(ha)

Evelyn:
I think a lot of bitterness and anger
can be avoided by simply putting it down
and letting it be in the past.   If you
carry anger with you all the time, you
can become an angry and bitter person
yourself. Anger always rots the vessel
that carries it.   Letting go can be a
very helpful and very useful way of
dealing with it.   Christians always say
"let go, let God" and it is the same
concept.
Just letting it go can really help.  

Ronny:
What you say here is right and good. Some trouble I have now though,with
abuse,abusive behaviour towards myself and someother people,is that it's
also in my present day life. And I'm a Christian as your brother is and
the trouble for me is that most of my pas and present day abuse comes
from some of my fellow Christians. So I'm still working on this in
various ways.

Evelyn:
I suggested that my brother (who is a
Christian) should pray about his stress,
and then practice with each out-breath,
a feeling of letting it go, letting it
pass.
I hope it helps him, because it would
kill me to have to see him die too soon
of stress related illness because of my
father's cruelty.

Ronny:
Yes,he needs to pray about it all. And by that I don't mean he has to do
any fancy thee's and thou's :-) I'm simply not big on anything like
that! LoL But I just mean flat out talking to God in a straight forward,
honest,plain way just like we talk with to some other people.
Talking,asking questions,just conversation. And a big help to me was
just reading in the Bible and in that way and other ways having God talk
to me. Now that helped me a whole lot.

Evelyn:
I am absolutely dreading dealing with
another case of dementia type illness in
my fathers case.   So far his memory is
not very good, but it is not the same as
alzheimer's was with my mother in law.
It is going to be a very rough ride. He
has been a very difficult and
problematic individual all of his life,
and he verbally and emotionally abused
my poor mother for so many years before
she died in the year 2000.
I just don't think I will be able to
handle another situation like Ida. My
siblings and I all just go weak at the
knees thinking about it.

Best Regards,
Evelyn
(to reply personally, remove 'sox')

Ronny:
I'm probably going to come off sounding real harsh here;but I read what
your Dad was like and what he's like now and I think when the time
comes,if indeed it does come,then you and your siblings need to have
your Dad in a nursing home where other people can do the most of the
caretaking. Maybe I'm not right on that? I don't know? What I do know is
how I start to get mad when I hear of a parent or such having been
abusive to a child or a spouse having been abusive to their spouse. I've
seen both of those things at times in my large,extended family and
nothing much makes me madder quicker than seeing or hearing of one
person abusing another. Especially when the abuser is the stronger of
the two in a lot of ways and is supposed to be loving and caring instead
of abusing.

One thing I count as one of the greatest blessings in my own life,was my
early upbringing and my knowing trust in my Dad & Mom & and older
siblings who I knew loved me. :-) To me,such times were more like a
little chick,me, :-) being under the Mama hen. LoL That is I knew where
I was safe and cared for and loved. I'm not saying my parents and older
sibling were perfect, (ha) for I'm sure they weren't during my early
growing up;but then none of us are perfect. But I look back on what I
had then,see how some young kids didn't and don't have such and I see
how blessed I was to have such. :-)

P.S.
Sorry,I did the quote and smallify thing and this particular post of
mine wouldn't send off,so I had to go back and remove all the little
marks (>) that do the smallifying! :-( Had to do that on one other post
tonight and then it got sent off just fine. Grumble, grumble,grumble!

Ronny:
Right! We are never to let others define who we are! LoL And some will
try to do it and run your life for you at the sametime! And if you don't
let them,they get all mad. But then so much better to let people like
that get mad,than to let them run your life!:-) LoL

Ronny:
What you said here brought this to my mind;two things we all need to
have in ourselves as we age,an old soul and a young heart! :-)