who'd have thought such a small thing could mean so much?

Email from my son this morning: Wow, I'm so impressed that you went and watched this film... sorry words fail me x x x ________________________________________________________ I managed to get hold of a store 6 miles away that would rent the DVD my son was talking about, take I.D. all that kind of thing and I watched it last night and could see what my son was enjoying about it and why it affected him the way it did. What an insight into his thoughts. I emailed him last night to say a few personal things and I couldn't believe it, there was the heartfelt reply - I think its the 5th or 6th email I've had from him in a week. Wow, that was great. To wake up and hear the postman pass my flat and leave nothing (sigh) to put on my email and there are just a few words from him, was soooooo nice. It just goes to show that if you keep your eyes and heart open, you never know what is going to come your way. Pain has a nasty habit of getting in the way, but if we can try to overcome the issues with tactfulness and help each other with the healing, then maybe we are on the road to better things. My heart draws breath and is a little scared in case all of this goes away.... what insecure creatures we are. Am reading the forums today and seeing so much pain wanting to be acknowledged. Each (now adult) child wanting a parent to be a parent, and yet all parents are children themselves with their own experiences and hangups and pain....the cycle seems never ending. Expectations seem high somehow and as a birthmother I've felt the pressure from my son with things like: "You'll understand me mum, because YOU'RE MY MUM". Thats true, but its not some passport to instant understanding and of everything. All relationships have to be worked on and some abandoned because of the nature of the personality you're dealing with and I'm thinking more of my own family here. I have had quite a few issues with my them, my biological family, adoption doesn't even come into it - my father left when I was 11 years old, 40 years later, I have what I'm starting to recognise as abandonment issues, that have affected me for life. My dad was always criticised by HIS mother and compared unfavourably against his brother which left him bitter and so it goes on. I remember as a child hearing my mother crying out for her mother when she was asleep. My sister told me that when mum was dying she cried out for her mother again. That haunted me, but it was also a reminder that we are children inside, trying to find our way in a very difficult and at times very cruel world. My mum had a lot of pain with losing her first husband (blown up) in the World War, she lost a baby and lost a 4 year old child to death, she lost my dad to divorce, and so it goes on. Is it any wonder, by the time our damaged souls are reached by our relinquished children, that we are in no fit state to respond as they so need us to? Its taken a lot of effort, and my mind has almost bent double with the emotional trauma and pain, but I am beginning to allow myself a smidgen of hope, realisation, that my son and I are actually getting it together extremely well. The bond is there and is deepening. That the way I've tried to tackle and help his issues and mine, is actually working. Well only time will tell, and I daren't get too .. anything.... small steps at a time ... hope and ... love, lots of it, lots of reassurance and lots of love. Thats the recipe.