She draws:
Then I stitch:
Boris Pasternak says:
When a great moment knocks
on the door of your life,
it is often no louder
than the beating of your heart,
and it is very easy to miss it.
Thank goodness I was home,
was listening,
when the idea for this project
came knocking on my heart.
I knew it as a great moment
by the quickening.
~~~~~~~~~
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.
This makes me want to cry & laugh & put my arms around you & kiss you hard on the cheek. I watched your videos today & I felt a connection to you. You are beautiful, intelligent, and your accent! Well, I just have a thing for southern accents. I just can’t help it. Thank you for being brave enough to have this blog, for the videos, and even braver for sharing your fears.
a hug and a kiss on the cheek are exactly what i need. thank you.
Dear Jeanne,
Your beauty shines through every single word of this post. You have shared yourself with us, your friends, your readers, and we have loved it all.
I can so totally empathize with what you are feeling. Completely. And, I can’t know what it is you are feeling. I can attempt to find a similar experience in my life, yet I can’t know. What I can do is love you, completely and unconditionally. I can celebrate you and everything you have shared and written here…and everything you have shared on your wonderful videos.
You are baring your real self here. You’re discovering who that real self is. We are bearing witness to your unfolding, your removing layers that have kept you hidden. It is breath-taking for me to witness, even when it takes your breath away to reveal.
With so much love…
salve. that’s what you and your words are, my friend. salve. and a rope with strands of beauty and truth and kindness and unconditional acceptance and welcome. a rope not to be used as a noose, but as a lifeline to hold onto as i make my way. thank you. and love.
I love you.
and i, you.
Jeanne, you are my hero(ine).
and you are mine. your unwavering support and encouragement and presence is everything to me. everything.
Your vulnerability is beautiful and you are priceless. Please, please, please never forget that. xoxo
emma. my always friend. the kind of friend i don’t have to talk to every day to be able to count on. thank you for your reassuring words. xoxo
you. are. beautiful. i knew it the first time i talked to you, your beauty shines right through.
i understand these questions, and i am the same in so many ways, i hate pictures of myself, i avoid the camera, and when i don’t i almost always say ugh. to the result. we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves.
i didn’t think or feel any of those things about you, i love your humor, i have a mother, and kids, and i love you.
I actually thrilled to see you use the word Trans Parent – exactly as you did, like that. You even went so far as to define the prefix Trans: across, over, beyond. And then ~ our paths diverged – because I saw the definition, and your process, differently.
Trans (over, beyond) Parent. You are healing hurts right now Jeanne ~ and you’re doing it from the place where your core powers exist: Compassion and Humour. You are defining your Self separate from your Mother, and doing so in a loving way that respects you both ~ and when you’re done, you’ll find your Self in this beautiful Oasis, sometimes known as Forgiveness.
I once heard this on Oprah: “Just because they loved you as much as they were able, does not mean that you received the love you needed or deserved.” That changed a lot for me – and helped me to feel less disloyal and less of a betrayer as I worked through my own Mother/Daughter healing.
We are a mature audience – and from what I can see, we all love you very much. And something else I learned from Oprah? Sometimes your true family is not the one you were born into – but the one you choose.
Much love …
Well, I’m 2 weeks late. But for the record, you’ve never been an embarrassment.
(Okay, scratch that. I *was* a teenager at one point. But weren’t we all?)
I love you. I think you’re beautiful. And I wish I could find an adequate way to express how proud I am of you.
Be good. 😉