Navigating the Impasse: A Personal Reflection on an Inner Journey

By Julia Fullerton

Have you ever wondered about the internal workings of a therapists mind? In this book, Julia, a gestalt therapist for many years, shares with you some of her own deeply personal, inner-processing work.

As you follow her internal struggle to find a way to navigate various impasses of her life, you will find her to be intelligent, courageous, occasionally humorous, and above all, steadfastly true to herself and her growing relationship with herself.

The short stories that make up this book are mainly allegorical. They are sometimes raw, sometimes beautiful, always deeply authentic, and will call out in you a desire to process your own life a little deeper.

As in all good therapists offices, it might be an idea to keep a glass of water and a box of tissues handy when you read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524520267

Julia Fullerton

Julia Fullerton moved several years ago to the wine region of the Yarra Valley in Victoria, Australia where she lives contentedly with her dog, Stanley. She is a mother and grandmother, sister, friend, colleague, and Gestalt therapist. Julia is an existential thinker who loves a robust discussion with the Bible study group she leads, visits with her children and grandchildren, coffee with friends, opera, and talking well into the night over a glass or two of the locally distilled gin. She enjoys cooking for her local weekly community dinners, expressing herself creatively through painting, pottery, gardening, cooking, and singing, but not through sewing, tidying up, or cleaning. She loves to prepare prayer spaces for people to explore themselves and their relationships with God and his creation. As well as being a Gestalt Therapist, Julia is training to be a spiritual director, and is interested in helping people and their families through the process of dying well. She believes that the struggle to become is common to all humanity and is never truly finished until life's end. Untidy by nature, Julia has found that writing helps her to focus her thoughts and collate them into some kind of useful order, which she hopes will also benefit her readers.

Book preview

Three Faces of Grief

CHAPTER ONE

The Death

Angela.

The night Mum died, as her breath left her body for the last time, I thought my breath would never return to me either. I had sat by her bed on and off for days, relieved at times by my husband and my daughters, accompanied by their husbands. I slept in snatches, ate half platefuls of lukewarm hospital canteen food and drank copious cups of grey tea and beige coffee. I sat by her bed, holding her hand, reading to her while she was awake, and breathing along with her difficult breaths when she slept.

Mum had come into hospital after a long battle between us. She had been adamant that she would die in her own home. I had been equally adamant that she would spend her last days in my care, in my home. Eventually neither of us got her way. The district nursing staff, which was rostered on to look after her over the weekend in her own home, was too sparse for adequate care one week and her doctor ordered her to hospital for the weekend, and there she stayed.

It had been that way between us for as long as I remember – she and me, fighting for control, neither of us winning and neither admitting defeat. I remember as a small child being smacked and refusing to cry until I had run upstairs, where I could flop onto my bed and bury my face in my teddy bear. I remember, when I was a little older, turning the hem up on my school skirt by torchlight under the bed covers night after night, when I was supposed to be asleep, and going to school the next day, crowing at my undetected alterations. Then, when I came home in the afternoon and Mum was up and alert, being forced to take off my skirt and watch as she undid all my stitches, got the ironing table out, and ironed out my lovely hem crease. If she occasionally found them, I could always replenish my hidden cache of needles and thread to sew the hem back up again and so the seemingly endless round continued.

Now, I would give anything to have those arguments back.

I was eighteen when I left home to marry my husband and went to live down the road a few minutes’ drive away. Mum became my staunchest supporter, giving me recipes (that she could always cook better than me) and housework hints (that I learnt to master better than she.) My husband and I would go to my family home after church every Sunday for an exemplar of The Sunday Roast Dinner and when my children came along, each of them was included in this sacred ritual.

Mum and Dad would visit us for dinner on weekdays, or for lunch on Saturdays, and thus we avoided too much competition between us. I think I held up my end pretty well on those occasions, as well as on birthdays. Even though I say it myself, I do birthdays well. Our house has always been full of well managed celebration on such occasions, with organised games when the girls were little, and musical soirees as they grew and became more competent on their instruments. Now, with grandchildren, there is room for both, according to bedtime routines.

After Dad died, Mum continued to entertain, but the elegance of the former years ebbed away for her, and I took on her mantle and became the family matriarch. Not that either of us openly acknowledged this, but Mum started to have luncheons instead of dinner parties and began to stay overnight at our house after my dinners had been cleared away. She would gossip with me over the guests when they had all taken their leave, and my husband had gone to bed, and we were downstairs alone together. We would talk about clothes and recipes and often Mum would reminisce about dinner parties she had presided over in her former glory years, as we sipped our final night cap before we would wearily climb the stairs and fall into bed ourselves.

Mum had a definite panache for interior decorating when she was younger, and I learnt well from her and, I think, surpassed her in a more genteel taste. She had loved the deep, rich colours and extravagant shapes of peacocks and birds of paradise, whereas I prefer the softer hues and more subtle design of doves and roses. Also, I am less afraid to spend money on what I want than she ever was and my husband knows to let me have my way!

So, Mum had come to the hospital and had, as usual, charmed the nurses and doctors from the moment she arrived. She always had an air of old money and could command quiet servitude with apparent ease. I, on the other hand, struggle a little more in this arena. I find I have to raise my voice a little more sharply than I would like, and look down my nose a little more than should be strictly necessary. Not too much voice or nose, just a little more than feels proper. It has taken me many years and much practice to get it right as often as I do nowadays, and I am grateful to Mum for her constant mentoring in this area (as in many others) as I watched, learnt and grew.

Even though Mum and I constantly fought for control, if anyone else gave a hint of wanting to control or harm me in any way, Mum was like a fierce guard dog, snapping and growling at them until they gave up and went away. I could always rely on her to protect me from all harm with as much as lay within her. As my family grew, each of my daughters lived with the same sense of safety that came from being guarded by her. Although she was strict with them when they were young, and even dictatorial at times as they grew up, they each loved, admired and respected her to the end.

And now she’s gone, and I have said my goodbyes, cried on my husband’s shoulder, told the girls and their husbands, spoken to the rest of the relatives on the phone in the correct order and talked to the undertaker about possible funeral dates. I have thanked the hospital staff for their kindness to Mum, slipped her watch onto my own wrist and her wedding ring onto my right hand, put her small book of daily devotional readings in my handbag and returned home.

Home seems unnaturally quiet and dark without Mum. How will I ever manage life without her? How will I manage my girls? How will I manage their husbands and their families? How will I manage Sunday dinners? For the last few years we have had them at our house, and there has at times been terrible tension between us. I did not make it easy for Mum to come to me; neither did she make it pleasurable to have her visit. But, underneath, we understood each other. We understood the battle ground. We understood the skirmishes. And we understood that there was no war. Other people, watching us, might not have understood this, but we knew. We knew the deep, abiding, fierce love we had for each other. We understood it. We rarely spoke about it – we were far too busy arguing, but we understood it. It needed no words.

Now I am left wordless and without passion. My grief feels weak within me in comparison to the love we had for each other. I don’t know how to express my love for her without fighting and she is not here to fight. I am like a blank, empty canvas.

I will organise the funeral, the food, the transport for those who need it, and the accommodation. I have already spoken to the minister at the church and organised tea and sandwiches for everyone who attends, and I have found a venue for the small gathering of closer people to share a meal with us afterwards.

I have sorted out what we shall all wear (well, my girls and their families, as well as my husband and myself) I have decided to suggest a dress code on the funeral notices, because you can’t be too sure these days that people will know the appropriate attire for these sorts of occasions, but I don’t think I can do more than that.

I didn’t choose the hymns, as Mum had already written down what she wanted, both for hymns and Scripture readings, as well as a poem or two. Mind you, we had a lot of discussion over this, and she changed her mind several times in the last weeks. I made some suggestions, and she took a couple of them on board, including a prayer that I liked, which I think one of the girls will read if she’s not too upset on the day. I think she will manage one prayer. She’s a self possessed young woman and used to public speaking, and she has no child of her own to keep still and quiet, like her sisters have.

Meg.

I woke up to a normal day this morning, birds twittering and tweeting in the tree outside my open bedroom window, drool on my pillow, alarm blaring to tell me it was time to get dressed and gulp down a cup of coffee before racing to the crossing to see all the schoolchildren safely across. Mummy never liked me doing this job. It