If love is the answer, the question is: “Is it possible to love someone too much?”    

Mother eloped at 16 years of age to marry Daddy; fortunately, he was 23, so he possessed enough maturity to help navigate their early challenges. Daddy’s work soon relocated them from the family farm to Houston, Texas. About a year and half into their marriage, mother delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl. They named her Billie Wanda Guy. They called her the “sunshine of their home.”

At 10-months old, Billie suddenly developed a respiratory infection that quickly escalated into a high fever and difficulty breathing. They called their family doctor, who stopped by their apartment that evening to examine the baby. (Doctors made house calls at that time.) The doctor provided medicine for her and said she should be ok within a day or two; however, in the middle of the night, she began laboring to breathe! Frightened, mother & daddy gathered her up and headed to the emergency room at the local hospital. On their way to emergency, Billie Wanda died in Daddy’s arms. 

They were so young, shocked, devastated! Mother was only 18 at the time. Back in the day, if a person sought psychiatric treatment, they were considered “crazy” so professional counseling was not considered; thus they did not receive assistance, nor did they have family and friends nearby for comfort. They simply dealt with this irrevocable loss as best they could. As a child, mother had experienced an earlier devastating tragedy. She was 10 years old. My grandparents ran a dairy farm in Louisiana. Grandpa wasn’t feeling well on a particular morning, so Granny went out to feed and milk the cows, while mother stayed inside to keep an eye on him and her baby sister. On her watch, Grandpa unexpectedly had a massive heart attack and died. I can imagine the fear and guilt mother must have felt, deep emotions of trauma and fear, grief and despair. 

Granny was suddenly a young widow with two young daughters to raise alone. Yet again the stigma attached to therapy left mother’s childhood trauma unprocessed; never released. As a child, I often wondered why, as a person of faith, she lived from a place of fear and worry? I had to grow up and have children of my own to even begin to comprehend the depth of her grief. Despite having built a wonderful home for us, as her adult daughter, I realized she suffered greatly throughout her life – always fearful something terrible would happen to one of us. This ‘thief in the night’ performed clandestine operations from a subconscious level – yielding a haunting, gut-level grief that too often robbed her of peace and joy. 

She and I were closely bound spirits. She was a key influencer in my life. As a youngster, I recall making an intentional decision not to worry excessively because I’d observed its tragic fall-out. I became a free spirit, an adventurer! I readily embraced the larger world, believing there was nothing I couldn’t do if I set my heart and mind to it. Mother kept trying to pull me back closer in. As a military wife, this pull-back became one of my greatest struggles. 

I recall wondering, “Is it possible to love someone too much?” It’s taken me a lifetime searching for answers to this question. I do believe we can hold on too tight to people we love and to past experiences. When life throws us a devastating curveball (which it sometimes does), we must ask for help, not suffer in silence for a lifetime. Embrace life, even the hard times! It’s a gift.

I don’t believe we can love too much, because I’m convinced love really is the universal solution. One of my favorite quotes: 

“If you love something, set it free. If it returns to you, it’s yours. If not, it never was.”

It’s Day 4 of the Writing Challenge and the prompt email is now in your inbox. Please post your Day 4 writing piece as a comment on this thread. Here’s my piece:

Closed Door

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird was one of my favourite films of 2018. It’s a mother-daughter story at heart. The titular character is a 17-year-old high school student preparing to move away for college. I immediately related to her. It feels like only yesterday that I was that angst-ridden not-quite-adult.

The movie opens with a scene of mother and daughter driving down the highway, openly weeping. They’re listening to the end of The Grapes of Wrath on tape at the conclusion of a college visit road trip. I was immediately struck by the intimacy of the moment.

That’s not the kind of 17-year-old I was. If I ever felt the urge to cry I retreated to an empty room with a door I could close, and preferably a lock I could fasten. Weeping was something to be done alone.

The thing is though, I’m a crier. I’ve polled friends on the frequency of crying instances and I’d safely say I’m in the top 10%. If there’s an emotional conversation happening, chances are I’ll shed tears.

When I first started going to therapy my biggest fear was crying in front of the therapist. In the immediate aftermath of a miscarriage a few years ago I happened to have a therapy session scheduled. I was hesitant about going but did. Towards the end of it I said, “I’m glad I came, this was really helpful. I almost didn’t come because I thought I wouldn’t be able to get any words out and I’d just sit here and cry for an hour.”

“That would have been ok too,” the therapist replied. Huh, really? This was news to me.

Lady Bird was an interesting film for me. At 17, Lady Bird was at about the midpoint between me and my then 1-year-old daughter. And for the first time, I related deeply to both the onscreen mother and daughter. For the first time in my movie-going career, I had lived experience of both roles.

I left the cinema that evening thinking much more about myself as a mother than as a daughter. Over the course of the film the mother-daughter relationship becomes increasingly strained. Towards the end we see Lady Bird’s mother attempting to write a letter to her daughter who’s about to move across the country for college. With crumpled up pieces of paper all around her she eventually gives up. The letter is never finished.

I don't want to give up with my daughter. I know I will struggle and fail but I want to keep trying. I want to be willing to present her with an imperfect letter. I don’t want to be a closed door. I want to let her see inside.

It’s no surprise at all that this is essentially what my work is about. We can call it storytelling or marketing or consulting because those words make us feel less vulnerable in the process, but what I’m really helping people do is find a way to show the world what’s inside their softest parts.