I GAVE MY SON A SONG FOR CHRISTMAS 2011 ~ UNTIL FOREVER ENDS

Christmas Eve
December 24, Saturday, 2011
Photo credit: Sandra Hammel

Christmas Eve
December 24, Saturday, 2011
Photo credit: Sandra Hammel

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This is a public video, however the purpose of this song is for my son, which is a personal matter. He is 24 years old. Some bonds are deep, some never take at all. The bond that I feel with my son is the deep kind, that of hearts, spirits - between two souls. And he came into my life when he was 8 years old.

I am grateful for this special experience, this special bond.

One day, I hope to do this song with better voice. In the meantime, I upload what I did yesterday and include the live version that I sang for my son as one of his Christmas presents on Christmas Eve 2011, which was shot with the cheapest camera sold. I dream of having a decent camera one day. I just can't afford one.

This song was written December 14, 2011 for my son.

Until Forever Ends

Written by Sandra Hammel

Though we are two hearts, many years apart,

Our bond runs deep, deeper than the blue sea,

Now, you, you sail on,

I stand here and watch you take flight……

Every day, keep your passions alive, breathe free,

I will love you always,

Until forever ends,

I will love you until forever ends.

Key: F Major

6/8 feel

Raw title: Until Forever Ends Live.mov

MIGHT BE UNBELIEVABLE IF IT WASN'T HAPPENING

Do you have one person in your life that the bond would be unbelievable, if it wasn't actually happening to you? I do. I didn't look for this bond where I found it. I always wanted this bond to happen with one other person and expected or hoped it would happen in an intimate relationship. But that is not where it showed up.

The bond is organic, in that it is natural and just is. That doesn't mean that it has only been warm feelings, peaceful and always smooth. None of those things are true. Trying to understand his emotional pain, heartfelt best intentions to always be what I needed to be for this person, times of being on the receiving end of hurtful words are true. Importantly, the hurtful words are not definitive of who he is. He owns his mistakes. And this is a new experience for me. I feel heard when expressing my feelings. I have not witnessed this truthful and complete endeavor in others to be the best that they are in all parts of their life. More specifically, the introspection that he uses to be his best self, I have not seen before. Especially in the men I have known.

The connection is one that is deep in my soul. I believe it is reciprocal. It is a rich and complex relationship between two deeply-feeling and deeply-experiencing beings. I am so grateful to have this bond and to know the connection in the way that I do as a gift from this other spirit walking the earth at the same time that I am.

It is without pretense. There is genuine communication not only in a mortal way, but in a spiritual way. The sincerity he has is so healing for me to see in another human being.

Truthfulness is a hallmark of how we allow each other to be. It is stunning and beautiful and I am grateful.

Recently, each time I have brought a difficult conversation to him, he has shown himself to not only meet me fairly and with complete integrity, he has exceeded how I might have imagined him to show up and allow himself to be and allow me to see. The openness has been refreshing. As he has entered his young adult life and I have entered the autumn into winter season of my life, he has shown glimpses of the most beautiful human being I have ever known. We are now working through things with our roles changing and I now can ask for things not possible when my role was the grown-up and he the, child.

We are approximately 40 years different in age.

He is my son. I didn't give him birth. But, if I had, we couldn't have been more connected with more of a bond.

December 28, 1997

Since my movie camera stopped working the day that he moved in, we went out and rented a movie camera to capture memories of the first Christmas together.

More of the same day

MY INTERNAL WORLD OF GRACE

Without even going out of the door
One can know the whole world.
Lao Tzu

I like to write. When I write about my internal world of feelings, confusion and need for understanding ~ I find healing, clarity and comfort just by finding ways to express my rawness. What I have learned over the last couple of years is that finding truth in my personal life is hard. Hard because what I always believed about my most important contributor to my life was simply wrong. I am wrestling with the depth of the feelings and trying to integrate the revealed with what used to be my internal world. Just because I don’t want to believe that it was false ~ to have been operating with the assumption that I was unconditionally loved by the one who brought me into this world ~ doesn’t change the truth.

Just because someone says “I love you” ~ it doesn’t make it so.

I have come to believe that I can make it without the unconditional love of someone else.

I am not a victim. I choose to live in personal truth. There is nothing more important than truth. Unless it is justice. But justice needs truth.

I take comfort in knowing that what I am is someone I could spend my whole life with. I know how ridiculous that reads. But I love my own company. I love my sense of humor. I love my spirit for life. And I love the joy of being me. I love that I am not pretentious. At the end of all endings, none of us has anyone but who we are. And if you can like yourself and how you have treated others and how you have stood for truth and justice, then that is a pretty good place to be.

I have been going through the foundation of my life. This search has been amplified by the death of my dad May 10, 2007 and finding myself letting the grieving out. It has shaken my core but I haven’t found it discouraging, but a lighter load to carry.

My dad had a diagnosis of Alzheimers Disease, but he and I communicated to his last breath. To me, he had some memory problems, but his spirit was always in tact and very present. My dad had my forgiveness for all the past rage and leather strappings during my childhood because in the end I saw the man for whom he really was ~ gentle, compassionate, loving and tactful. My dad gave me the personification of integrity and being genuine. With me, he showed a sense of humor in his last year. I consider it a gift.

It has been holy work to figure out my family. I have been so moved by the sweetness of my dad. I am aware that the last time we were together was a spiritual experience not only between father and daughter, two human beings, but with Life itself in an all encompassing way. It was a religious experience for me.

What more could we possibly be than sweetness in another’s life?

My roots will be constantly reaching for my father’s fertile ground of strength, fortitude and joy of life. Plant your tree where the ground is best for you.

“We think of religious activity
as directed toward God
- instead of man.

We believe in someone divine
rather than in ourselves.

Maybe we have turned religion
inside-out.”

From the book Please Touch by Edwin M. McMahon and Peter A. Campbell

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“What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”
William Wordsworth

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The Rose sung by Bette Midler
Uploaded by DarkLady77

If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, no one asks why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I’ll fly free then.

Yesterday’s eyes see their colors fading away
They see their sun turning to grey
You can’t share in a dream, that you don’t believe in
If you say that you see and pretend to be me
You won’t be then.

How can you ask if I’m happy goin’ my way?
You might as well ask a child at play!
There’s no need to discuss or understand me
I won’t ask of myself to become something else
I’ll just be me!

If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, and no one asks her why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I’ll fly free then.

Lyrics of If I Had Wings as sung by Peter, Paul and Mary