Red Friday - Christmas Love

When filling out your holiday cards this year, take one card and send it to this address:

Any Canadian Forces Member
  Op Attention
  Kabul
  PO Box 5140 Stn Forces
  Belleville ON K8N 5W6

This will send to soldiers in Afghanistan. For other areas, change the location. See
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/commun/message/addresses-eng.asp
If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these wonderful, special people, who have sacrificed so much would get. 
       

Also share Homecoming stories and send Christmas wishes. See:

http://www.familyforce.ca/sites/Shilo/EN/Lists/Announcements/Attachments/23/Operation%20Wish%20-%20Sears%20Canada%20ENG.pdf

http://www.sears.ca/custom-content/operation-wish?extid=050211_ca_Vanity_EN_Unknown_Operationwish
or help fill packages and send electronic wisheshttp://www.cfpsa.com/en/psp/amenities/opsanta/santa.asp

Red Friday ~ The Peacekeepers

I have posted before about the importance of Peace Keeping Missions, and why the veterans of those missions deserve full honours.  I came across this article while researching something else, and thought I would share it as today's Red Friday offering.


The full article can be found at http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhr-ddhr/chc-tdh/chart-tableau-eng.asp?ref=DagHammarskjold 

The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is presented by the United Nations to the families of those who gave their lives in the service of the United Nations.

With over one hundred medals, Canada is the country that has paid the highest price in human life in the service of the United Nations over the last 50 years of peacekeeping operations. The Secretary-General presented one symbolic medal to each of the ambassadors representing countries that have lost personnel on UN missions. For Canada, the Medal of Acting Brigadier Harry Herbert Angle, D.S.O., E.D. was presented to our Canadian Ambassador to the UN, Paul Heinbecker, on 29 April 2002. Brigadier Angle was the first Canadian to die while serving the UN, he was killed in an airplane accident on 17 July 1950 while serving as Chief Military Observer in Kashmir on the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).

Following this initial presentation, the medals were forwarded to the Directorate of Honours and Recognition (DH&R) for presentation co-ordination. Nearly 80 medals have already been presented to families in ceremonies conducted across the country but DH&R is seeking assistance to locate recipient’s family members to complete the other presentations. If you know the whereabouts of any surviving relative of the following recipients, please contact DH&R toll free at 1-877-741-8332.

RANK	FIRST NAMES	SURNAME	DATE OF DEATH	MISSION
F/O	Richard Vaughan	EDWARDS	28 April 1966	UNEF
CPL	Joseph Paul Réal	HUDON	26 December 1985	UNDOF
PTE	Denis Auguste Joseph	LAMOTHE	16 March 1966	UNEF
MCPL	Joseph Raymond	LESSARD	01 December 1972	UNFICYP
CPL	Emanuel	OLIVIER	09 December 1961	UNEF
PTE	Joseph Lionel Gilbert	PERRON	06 August 1974	UNFICYP
F/O	Joseph M.L.P.	PICARD	30 April 1966	UNEF
TPR	Reginald James	WILEY	07 September 1961	UNEF

I am a hypocrite

If I tell people the only expectations they have to live up to are their own, then I have no right to feel hurt and betrayed when they don't live up to mine.


If I tell my friends in relationships that they have to make only themselves and their partner happy, and if someone else doesn't like their relationship, too bad, then I can't be disappointed when choices are made that put the relationship first, and me a far distant second.

~~~~~~~~~

Sounds good, doesn't it?


If only I could get my heart to agree.


I throw the above platitudes out, but it still hurts me when I see friends and family members making choices that I think are going to hurt them.  It interesting, my friend Karen posted THIS LINK today, and wow was it ever appropriate.  I have saved it to re-read, and will try to let the lessons sink in.


Strangely, that was my therapist's main message last week too - quit carrying other people's baggage, quit trying to fix other people's problems.


I can't fix my brother's marriage; I can't even diagnose it as broken.  I can just love and support him, and be the best sister I can be.


I can't fix what is going on with Sebastian; I can just love and support him and be the best ... me ... that I can be. Not his mom, not his advisor, not someone else telling him what to do ... just me.


I have other friends that I need to apply this same lesson too; one in particular that, since watching him walk the road he is on is so painful to me, that maybe it is time I let the "friendship" go.  He has severed it himself repeatedly, but always comes back ... and then the cycle repeats, and he leaves again.  Maybe this time I need to say no, that I care too much to be part of this any more, that I will not do it to myself.


It is time to sort my own bags out.


This is not the first time I have heard this lesson.  My Reiki master that I trained with told me the same thing, she said that many of the problems I chose to carry were not my own.  Since I spend so much time on the road, I used to have a sign in my car that said "OK, Everyone Out Of The Car!" (it used to freak out the occasional passenger I did have).  That was where I did most of my "stewing", while I was driving ~ I would worry about my parents, my brother, various friends, ... the list can get quite long.


Easy to say; much harder to do.


My homework from the first therapy session was to make a list of the bags I can put down.  I think its time to do my homework.

Red Friday

"But if I could ask one thing of all Canadians for Remembrance Day, it would be this: Spare not a thought for the fallen. Think instead of those left behind, the families. All soldiers join knowing the risks, and all soldiers deploy to wars even more aware of those risks, and are willing to take them, for themselves, for the challenge, or simply because it is expected. But no family freely offers their loved one up. No family truly thinks it could happen to their loved one. But in the end, it is they who pay the sacrifice long after their loved one is gone. Think of them, remember them, this November 11." 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/Remembrance_Day/a-soldiers-request-think-not-of-the-fallen-but-of-their-families/article2227439/

Clarity ...

At least, a start.


The counsellor was ... mediocre.  I am willing to give her some more time, but there was certainly not an instant connection, and she certainly didn't reveal anything novel or earth shattering.  But then again, it was the first time she had met me, and I did lay quite a bit on her.  I do have some homework, but for now, I have to briefly discuss something else :

My dearest, beautiful CoffeyPot e-mailed me some advice, from the perspective of a warrior.  And I hear the angels sing ...


Sebastian is not "shutting me out", as I have been seeing it.  He is trying to protect me, but not because he thinks I am weak, that I can't handle what is going on, or that I don't deserve to know; and certainly not because he doesn't care.


This is a mission for him to complete, in his mind.  It is a battle.  You don't take civilians to battle with you; you don't take your girlfriend (at least, not since the days of Napoleon).  You don't take someone who might distract you from focusing on and successfully completing the mission objectives.


Some of you might read that and think "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?" but to me it makes perfect sense.  And all of a sudden, I was more OK with it than I have been in a long time.


In another strange twist of fate, one of Sebastian's friends, Tex, e-mailed me today and told me not to worry about anything, and basically said he was going to ride in from the east and save the day ... damn near a "Don't you fret, little lady, I'll look after this".  I could just imagine a ten gallon on his head and his thumbs caught in his holster ...


Boys are kinda cute, when they're not being dumb ...

Counselling ...

I made a counselling appointment for tomorrow.  Between the *crap*, and the fact I think I may have an unhealthy obsession with the possibly the the Wolf did not get the message last time, I need some help to find my focus again.


I am firmly of the opinion that counselling never hurts.  I can't afford to go back to the counsellor I worked with after the Wolf and I initially split, which is too bad (my work benefits only covered 1/2 his fee, and my benefits through the CF are long gone).


So you can expect some random brain dumps on here as I work through things.


Off to make a list of things I want to bring up with her.  Oh yes, this is going to be a new one for me - I have never worked with a female counsellor before.  I wonder if it will be any different.


Edit add:  I just went to the new counsellor's web site and read her bio - if I could have created a background and specialty "wish list", she would be it.  Thinking positively!

No words

Sometimes, its best to let others express what you're feeling.

It wasn't a mistake.  The "crap" is on again.

Sorry for the service interruption

Sorry for the brief service interruption, folks.  We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.

(If you don't know what I am talking about ... please just carry on)

:o)

Unbelievable

The stress? The crap?  The bullshit?


Ya, it's back on.


Damnit.


I don't know how S can deal with this; its like the bastards are trying to break him.  I'm worried about him; this is worse than just letting it run the first time; to dangle the relief in front of him and then slam him back down.


I don't understand it.  I can't make it better, and that kills me - I can't take this away.  And that door that had been opening for the last few days, the light that had been pouring in ... just slammed shut again.


When this is really over; I hope someone has to answer for their actions.  

Blog Blast For Peace, November 4th, 2011

I have never talked to a soldier who wouldn't prefer to be out of a job because they were no longer needed ...

So true.

Thank you, Thom, for reminding me of this, and thank you, my loving CoffeyPot, for sending me the graphic.  So much bloggy love out there in the 'verse.

Its OVER!

The crap that S has been dealing with since last summer, the crap the I knew had to come to a head soon ... is over.

Not the perfect outcome, but such a very close second that its not worth any tempering of the happiness at all.

Today, my friends, is a very, very good day.

On with LIFE!