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| Finding focus, finding depth: Sue Carson |
Sue Carson and I went out for a cup of coffee and, let me
tell you, it was no ordinary cup of coffee. For a very moving reason that
I’ll explain later in this blog, Sue is determined to go through the rest of
her life not just mindful of others, but connecting with others. Indeed, she is
working on what she calls an “intention to love.”
It may sound corny to you, but that may be because there's fear and risk in opening yourself up to such an extent. And vulnerability.
But back to our coffee. We stop in at a little shop and Sue doesn’t just order. She talks with the
young woman behind the counter. She engages her. She looks her in the eye. She
finds a way to connect.
Why? Because Sue has learned that such small gestures can
lead down paths never imagined. Paths you never had time for when you worked
fulltime.
“When you’re so engaged in full-force throttle and into a
job where you’re getting there at 7 in the morning and your to-do list on your
plate is never clean, you don’t have time," she explains. "You don’t have time to have those
small interchanges. I think that that’s the real beauty of that gift of time. The smallest thing can become so
significant and that’s what I’m really beginning to realize every day. That the
smallest gestures are not just little things."
Late in her mother’s life, small gestures transformed their
relationship, after decades in which Sue had felt resentment and anger. After
her father’s sudden death when Sue was in college, her mom “became the lady in
black,” depressed. Sue transferred home and, she explained, “I ended up being
her care giver.” After college, Sue fled to Europe for two years, but “I
ended up coming home to be with my mother and I would always say -- and I know
it’s terrible -- when my mother’s not here, I’m free to go, to run. I always
felt she was my anchor and I resented it. So we had a very tumultuous kind of
relationship. I never really let her love me. I was always pushing back. I
always had this anger thing that never let me hug or kiss her and be warm with
her, though I saw her all the time.”
Fast forward. Her mom is in her 90s and dying. And Sue is complaining to a friend: “I have to be there all the time.
She doesn’t feel good. She’s not nice to me. She yells at me… Same thing as
when I was a kid. I can’t do anything right in her mind.”
Her friend tells a story of her own mother’s death and
suggests that Sue “go to her house, rub her feet, wash her legs. Make her feel
better. Show her how much you love her. You’ve been taking care of her all this
time and never feeling love but it’s coming from love. Have it recognized.”
Sue continues, “I drove over to my mom’s house that day and I
sat on the bed with my mother and I was rubbing her legs. She kind of just
melted into me touching her. That evolved to me crawling in bed with her, with
her head against me.”
Soon, she says, her anger, too, melted away. Their relationship shifted. “I truly, truly, began to love her.”
After her mom died (during a night when Sue held her in her
arms belting out show tunes), a vision came to Sue at the
end of a particularly meditative yoga class, with a live singer.
“Her song took me somewhere,” Sue said, her eyes welling up
over our now cold coffee. “I was on a hill, the wind was blowing, my hair was
blowing, there were warm breezes. It was a dreamy kind of a state. And on the
top of the hill was my mom. I was walking toward her, carefree, like in a dance.
"Afterwards I was just crying, I was just so moved. I thought how grateful I was that I really learned what love
was at this moment. And how sad it was that I lived for 59 years with my mom
and I never walked over to her with those open arms. Ever. And it made me
really sad.
“I asked myself, ‘If I did this with my mother, where else am I
doing it? Maybe I’m doing it with my children, maybe I’m doing it with my
husband.’ When I really began to look at it, I was. I was pushing everybody
away. I’m the strong person who doesn’t need anything. I didn’t let people do
for me. I only would do for somebody else. I had to be the knight on the
shining horse for everyone and I realized that I was keeping people at arm’s
length and I decided at that moment that I was going to really work at opening
up to love. …
"I decided I would be a more loving, devoted person,
particularly to [my husband] John.
Because I realize he’s my core. He’s who I’m with. If I can love him more, that’s the place to
begin.
“Some days are easier than others. Some days are hard. But there’s
this huge change and shift in my relationship with him.
"Because as I’ve worked
to be more giving, less judgmental, more mindful… not rolling my eyes, letting
him be who he is without trying to change him. it’s just opening up so many
doors. My relationship with my kids. My relationship with my friends. I’m
really trying to be here. I’m really trying to stop the chatter that takes me
to places I don’t want to go. You don’t change overnight. That’s for sure. It’s
bit by bit and piece by pieces. We’re all works in progress. Again because I
have time, I have the ability to contemplate. [In my job] I was too filled and
absorbed with columns and numbers and deadlines and have-tos and to-do's. I never
had time. I now have the moment to pause, to ponder what I did and didn’t do
with my life. I was just doing it. I was on autopilot.
I love that I’m not doing that now.
