My Neighbour Totoro Made Me Cry!
I welled up and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It comes from the gut, from the heart. From buried emotions you try to hide, yet everyday things can uncover them as though they're in plain sight! And what's more it was a double whammy of emotions...
One thing having a seriously ill child who's been through 2 open heart surgeries has made me become is emotional! I know, I know, I'm human, I have emotions, I feel.
No, these emotions are completely different to any I have felt before, when I was 'normal'. By normal, I of course mean going through life with nothing major other than the usual death of grandparents etc. to deal with. That possibly sounds terrible, but I hope you get my meaning? You do, don't you? My parents had various pets when I was a child and it's the perfect way to prepare children on how to deal with the emotions of death, as pets have a relatively short life span, so when the bigger emotion of a grandparent dying inevitably comes along at some point in your childhood, you know what to expect and can deal with it in the time honoured way.
So, sure enough, before when something genuinely sad happened I'd feel the sad emotion. It would be genuine at the time, but the emotion would pass in time, and I went back to normal life.
But now, my emotions from my son's heart issues won't fade. They're as strong as they ever were. I can get a myriad of emotions from things and situations that never triggered me before.
Something completely unrelated and incongruous that someone says in a conversation, or a picture of something entirely unrelated to anything, whether at work or elsewhere, or indeed from watching a film.
Now I know some films, especially well made films, are designed to tug on the heart strings and play with your emotions. I'm afraid I'll never really be able to describe the difference between that entirely expected pang of emotion you get, but nonetheless keeping it together in that sense, even if you do cry, when watching a film (as in this example), and the welling up, from the gut emotions I suddenly get.
Last night, along with my daughter, I was watching one of the many brilliant animated films from the Japanese film company, Studio Ghibli. This one is called My Neighbour Totoro, and for those who don't know it, a quick premise of the film is 2 sisters move to a house in the country with their father.
It turns out their mother is seriously ill in hospital, and has been there some time.
The film basically shows, in a childlike way, the emotions they go through as they try to come to terms with their mother, 1. being away from home and from them, and 2. being ill in hospital.
Through either their imagination or what, it's never fully explained, they find forest spirits, one of whom is called Totoro. And Totoro helps the sisters through this difficult period in their life through fun, empathy and kindness. And it got to me.
It got to me as a double whammy! The memories of everything I went through at hospital twice over and everything in between came up as an emotion. But the double whammy was I could see Grace was getting a little emotional as well.
Now I want her to learn about emotions and how to deal with them and how to emote them when needed. Just like all parents do via pets etc. But again, I could tell this was a little different.
You see, it's not just me, or Julie, who has had to deal with serious emotional turmoil that we never expected; Grace has too. And it's easy to 'forget' a young child feels just as you do.
It got us into a good conversation though. We talked it through. Grace was worried the Mum in the film would be like Sebastian. I explained that Sebastian got better and came home, so the same would happen for their Mum as well.
Grace was worried they would feel very sad like she did at being away from someone she loved. This nearly made me break down and it took all my strength to hold it together to have the necessary conversation with her! I welled up. My voice broke as I spoke. But we both had a little tear, we agreed it was sad, that we felt sad about what had gone before in our life, but that things were ok now, and they would be for the girls and the Mum in the film.
Grace was 2 years old when Sebastian had his first OHS, and although we've had numerous people try to tell us she'll have no memory of it as time goes on and will forget it, she never has. She still talks about those days at hospital and the fact she went with off with her grandparents while we dealt with Sebastian going into surgery. Then afterwards she came to see Sebastian, and us at the hospital. She remembers it all. She remembers having to sleep at her grandparents for 2 nights without us as we had to stay at the hospital and there was no facility for Grace until we got the room in the McDonalds House 2 days later.
So don't kid yourself a young toddler will forget. They forget the normal things of life, just as we all do. The mundane and the everyday. But really serious stuff will stay with them.
You see, as humans, even young humans, we know when something is proper serious, proper bad. It's how we learn to deal with it that makes the difference.
I'm still struggling with my emotions, still learning how to deal with the legion of feelings that come at me like waves from nowhere, emotions and feelings about lack of control, of failure - despite it being no ones fault, of guilt I didn't spot his CHD symptoms earlier when I 'knew' something wasn't right, guilt that I shouldn't be having these feelings and emotions when it's not even me who's been through the surgeries!
Mental health is a strange beast indeed.
One thing having a seriously ill child who's been through 2 open heart surgeries has made me become is emotional! I know, I know, I'm human, I have emotions, I feel.
No, these emotions are completely different to any I have felt before, when I was 'normal'. By normal, I of course mean going through life with nothing major other than the usual death of grandparents etc. to deal with. That possibly sounds terrible, but I hope you get my meaning? You do, don't you? My parents had various pets when I was a child and it's the perfect way to prepare children on how to deal with the emotions of death, as pets have a relatively short life span, so when the bigger emotion of a grandparent dying inevitably comes along at some point in your childhood, you know what to expect and can deal with it in the time honoured way.
So, sure enough, before when something genuinely sad happened I'd feel the sad emotion. It would be genuine at the time, but the emotion would pass in time, and I went back to normal life.
But now, my emotions from my son's heart issues won't fade. They're as strong as they ever were. I can get a myriad of emotions from things and situations that never triggered me before.
Something completely unrelated and incongruous that someone says in a conversation, or a picture of something entirely unrelated to anything, whether at work or elsewhere, or indeed from watching a film.
Now I know some films, especially well made films, are designed to tug on the heart strings and play with your emotions. I'm afraid I'll never really be able to describe the difference between that entirely expected pang of emotion you get, but nonetheless keeping it together in that sense, even if you do cry, when watching a film (as in this example), and the welling up, from the gut emotions I suddenly get.
Last night, along with my daughter, I was watching one of the many brilliant animated films from the Japanese film company, Studio Ghibli. This one is called My Neighbour Totoro, and for those who don't know it, a quick premise of the film is 2 sisters move to a house in the country with their father.
It turns out their mother is seriously ill in hospital, and has been there some time.
The film basically shows, in a childlike way, the emotions they go through as they try to come to terms with their mother, 1. being away from home and from them, and 2. being ill in hospital.
Through either their imagination or what, it's never fully explained, they find forest spirits, one of whom is called Totoro. And Totoro helps the sisters through this difficult period in their life through fun, empathy and kindness. And it got to me.
It got to me as a double whammy! The memories of everything I went through at hospital twice over and everything in between came up as an emotion. But the double whammy was I could see Grace was getting a little emotional as well.
Now I want her to learn about emotions and how to deal with them and how to emote them when needed. Just like all parents do via pets etc. But again, I could tell this was a little different.
You see, it's not just me, or Julie, who has had to deal with serious emotional turmoil that we never expected; Grace has too. And it's easy to 'forget' a young child feels just as you do.
It got us into a good conversation though. We talked it through. Grace was worried the Mum in the film would be like Sebastian. I explained that Sebastian got better and came home, so the same would happen for their Mum as well.
Grace was worried they would feel very sad like she did at being away from someone she loved. This nearly made me break down and it took all my strength to hold it together to have the necessary conversation with her! I welled up. My voice broke as I spoke. But we both had a little tear, we agreed it was sad, that we felt sad about what had gone before in our life, but that things were ok now, and they would be for the girls and the Mum in the film.
Grace was 2 years old when Sebastian had his first OHS, and although we've had numerous people try to tell us she'll have no memory of it as time goes on and will forget it, she never has. She still talks about those days at hospital and the fact she went with off with her grandparents while we dealt with Sebastian going into surgery. Then afterwards she came to see Sebastian, and us at the hospital. She remembers it all. She remembers having to sleep at her grandparents for 2 nights without us as we had to stay at the hospital and there was no facility for Grace until we got the room in the McDonalds House 2 days later.
So don't kid yourself a young toddler will forget. They forget the normal things of life, just as we all do. The mundane and the everyday. But really serious stuff will stay with them.
You see, as humans, even young humans, we know when something is proper serious, proper bad. It's how we learn to deal with it that makes the difference.
I'm still struggling with my emotions, still learning how to deal with the legion of feelings that come at me like waves from nowhere, emotions and feelings about lack of control, of failure - despite it being no ones fault, of guilt I didn't spot his CHD symptoms earlier when I 'knew' something wasn't right, guilt that I shouldn't be having these feelings and emotions when it's not even me who's been through the surgeries!
Mental health is a strange beast indeed.
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