Women - 20th Day of Gratitude

I have known many women in my life, the first I suppose was my Mother, who is sadly no longer with us. Sadly, because I am sure we would actually be great company for each other these days; now that I have grown to become a woman and I understand her more.

You see, when I was growing up, we just did not get on, in fact, far beyond my growing up.

Mum suffered from Depression.  I know that is something these days which is fairly common, but in the 1960's, 70s, 80s and even 90s, Mental Illness was not considered an illness at all. Ironically people would say "Its all in your head." (duh) Psychology wasn't really understood. Nor was anxiety and depression.

Those were times when you would simply be put in a corner or locked in an institution or treated like an outcast and for all time then after considered to have "gone mad", never to be accepted as a part of civilised society again.

Anti Depressants for what they were worth, were more like a sedative, doing nothing to help a person function again and in fact making the problem much worse particularly in a social sense.

It was her Depression that made our relationship so difficult for the most part, I found her unreliable, inconsistent, unable to function when I needed her and then ... I hit puberty.

Too late then for us to reconcile, and so all those lessons of character I had learnt, became a part of my own life and I rebelled.

Before my Mother became seriously ill, she was an intelligent capable woman, I do remember some of that. We saw snippets of it through those years too as she fought what I now know must have been a hell of a fight to be well.

I know she was Queen of Trivial Pursuit. We would all refuse to play, as no game is all that fun when you know who is going to win! But I believe that talent also rubbed off a bit; I often surprise myself with the things that just seem to come to mind.

Thankfully, although I don't have my Mother, there are other women who have come into my life over time. Women I can spend hours chatting with, covering many topics, laughing at our own jokes, recounting embarrassing stories from years gone by and even shedding a tear or two.

These are women who when I posted this blog post about my feeling unwell, made contact with me offering soup, supplements, advice and comfort and just about anything else I might have needed.

These are the women who have helped me to heal, who have filled that hole in my life where a Mother is not, and who give me the strength and courage each day to just keep moving forward.  These are the women who care.

We all have these women in our lives, they come in many shapes and forms; and to many, we are those women. In reading this post, I hope it inspires you to recognise those women in your life and have a moment of real gratitude for the wonder of who they are.

Today, I am grateful for women, my women.