I was sitting there on the sand facing the ocean. She was sitting in front of me, with her back against my chest. My arms around her, holding her close to me, I was touching her face. Her hair fluttered around in the wind that was caressing us lovingly—the wind of life passing by.
Clouds hovered above our heads, looking down and watching us with their invisible eyes, as if they wanted to capture the essence of that moment.
The crimson-orange sun was slipping into the ocean, bit by bit, moment by moment—as if deliberately—just to see us together one more time before embarking on its own journey, leaving behind just a yellow tint on the skyline.
I looked at the setting sun and it spoke to me, “Stay there my friend, as long as you are meant to be. Make this moment eternal. Freeze it in your heart like a beautiful painting, so that you can look at it when you need to—and you will need to someday!”
There was no noise. Just the sound. The sound of silence. The sound of the wind passing by. The sound of the waves coming, touching our feet—as if to kiss them—and going back, taking away with them the message of love into the ocean of eternity!
There were no words to say. No things to talk about. All was said and heard already. No questions remained. No answers were needed. All we needed was already there—Us!
We were two souls becoming one in that moment—the moment of a lifetime!
Just like in the heart of an atom lies an enormous power, which if allowed to explode can destroy everything around it, similarly, there exist moments in our lives, which if allowed to come to surface and open up, have the incredible power to demolish all the emotional blockages, that we take years to build, in order to keep our sorrows, hurts and suffering of our pasts locked up inside us.
We lock them up so that we can survive and go on with our “normal” lives. The lives that other people see us living. But only we know, that’s how other people perceive our lives to be, is not how our lives are. There is always an undercurrent of life that we live, along with a life that we live on the surface.
And then someday, something happens and that moment—which we always keep hidden inside us and avoid facing at all costs—comes to surface and explodes. Its utter intensity and colossal power takes on a life of its own.
We feel helpless in front of it. We give up because there is no other choice but to surrender ourselves before it. We let it do what it is supposed to do—to shatter to pieces all the bandages that we put on our hearts, wound by wound.
And then the storm bursts forth with an all-consuming force, and spills out of our eyes in the form of tears. They just come and come and come… We cry from the heart. Our souls shiver in the presence of such a moment and we—ourselves—become just like a tear. Wet from the inside out, drifting away from ourselves, going with the pull of the gravity of our emotions.
It doesn’t stop, unless everything is washed away. It doesn’t end, unless there is nothing left to cry about. It doesn’t rest, unless all that remains in our hearts is emptiness.
And emptiness is a blessing, because if your heart is already filled, you can not love anyone or anything, without creating a mess inside an already messy heart. Cleansing is important and that is what that moment does to us. It cleans out the past debris, leaving behind a heart as pure as gold.
People say that you can only love once in your life. They say that you can never forget your first love or your last love. I say that there is no first or second or last love. There is only love and we love the people we are supposed to love when it’s their time to show up in our lives.
You won’t be able to stop that feeling of love for someone when it is time for you to love him or her. Reasons don’t matter in the affairs of the hearts. Hearts come with a reasoning of their own.
And every love that you experience is different and yet the same. Each love leaves you with something immortal, eternal and changes you in an unchangeable way. And listen to me when I say this;
If you have loved someone, and that has not changed your life for good, you have never really loved.
That is the unchallengeable power of love.
People love and get hurt, and heartbroken many of them either fall into depression or turn toward avoidance by welcoming drugs and/or revengeful lust in their lives. They think that their lives are worth nothing, now that they can not be with the one they love.
What a wasteful approach toward love that is! What a sad, negative approach!
Yes it hurts and it hurts really bad when it happens, and yes it leaves its scars on your soul, but is that all that your loving someone gives you?
What about those golden moments when you felt complete with the person you loved? Don’t they mean anything to you now?
What about the ecstasy in which your spirit danced when you loved someone? Does that have no value for you, now that your beloved is not with you anymore?
Why not?
Love is just like life. It has its ups and downs. Sorrows and pleasures. Hurt and healing.
Why do we only focus on the hurts and forget about all the pleasures it lets us experience? Why we only remember the suffering and choose not to acknowledge its blessedness? Like I said, love is just like life. Love is life. Life is love.
So let’s treat it as life itself.
Strip away the hurt and let that moment dance in your heart which made you feel complete—even if for a second. Get rid of the suffering and let the glorious light of love shine in your spirit.
And as for the hurts and suffering—The Moment—which I talked about above, will take care of that. Your tears will wash it all away. Learn to cry like that. Learn to let that moment soothe your trembling heart. Learn to respect those healing tears—that holy water!
Yes that moment may not be a single moment. It may stretch itself to a day, a week, a month, a year or even a few years, but it always comes one day to take you in its healing and invigorating embrace.
And when your heart starts feeling light again—and it will—love that person even more. Keep him or her alive in your heart and be grateful, that he or she made it possible for you to feel love’s elation, its rapture, its intoxicating beatitude—the greatest emotion you as a human being can ever experience.
Let your sorrows be your sweetest songs, like Shelley so aptly and so beautifully said,
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
As I heard these lines, I opened my eyes and the sun had already gone down. The night was waking up. The winds were still dancing around. The waves were coming and going as they were supposed to. Life was dancing on the tunes of destiny, as always.
The only one who was not there—was Her. She was gone with the sun. I smiled at her, at the ocean, at the winds, at the clouds, at myself, at life, at love and walked back to my life again—with my eyes almost dry, and a silence in my heart, the type of silence that floats over the stillness of our souls after a storm has just passed.
Blessing her one last time, I whispered to her soul that she will always remain in my heart, but only for the greatest emotions she allowed me to experience with her. I told her that I’ll be eternally grateful to her that she came into my life for however little a time, for whatever reasons.
And in the heart of my heart, I knew, that it’s not over—yet…
Story written by Abubakar Jamil.
When you are going through a separation you are obviously going to be concerned about the effect that it has on your children. Everyone’s lives have suddenly been turned upside down and everything that we are used to is changing. It can be a very unsettling time for our children, as well as you, so steady as you go, it is important that the children keep a sense of security and familiarity. Creating and maintaining routines can help to do this and also help you and your ex to find a new way of looking after your children.
Circumstances can change. We can’t assume the present needs of our children will be their future needs, you may not own the same assets in one year that you own in another, you might remarry, separate, divorce or anything.
As we know the norm has been that when children are born they take on the fathers surname. After divorce, women sometimes change their name back to their maiden name or if they remarry, may change their surname to their new partners surname.
I needed to be completely honest with myself, I couldn’t hide debt and expect to have a budget that would work. So I added everything up and didn’t forget to add in the food, beer, petrol, iTunes downloads, books, movies and gifts for the kids. They are all legitimate and definite expenses for us dads.
Most dads need about 8½ to more than 9 hours of sleep each night. But about 1 in 4 dads has trouble sleeping. Lack of sleep can affect everything from our emotions to how well we focus on juggling all the things we need to do as a parent. It can affect our mood and increase our chances of getting sick.
All kids from young to teenagers need the basics of life – like food, warmth, shelter and clothing. But they also need to feel loved and secure. By giving our children all the things they need, we can help them be safe, strong and thrive.
Children love stories about themselves – it helps them feel loved and important. You could make a scrapbook or even a cork pin-board that’s all about your child from the time they were born. Put all sorts of things in/on it, cork boards are a great way to display dreams and positive affirmations:
“Sometimes I don’t realize how much stress is building up until I suddenly feel overwhelmed. Other times, several stressful or attention-demanding events will happen at once, and I suddenly go from calm to completely overwhelmed really quickly. However it happens, It’s a good idea to know how to quickly calm down when feeling overwhelmed by stress?”
I have always been concerned about my child being approached by a dangerous person. I cant imagine another instance that I would be more scared of? There was some research done in NSW that showed 95% of attacks on children are from people they know. Which also means we need to educate our kids on the safe places around them like shops, neighbours and who are the safe people in our lives.
Dads tribute tattoo’s
Don’t just clone what you see on TV or what some movie star or football player has on their arm, it’s you that is going to wear the design. Do plenty of research before deciding what to get i.e. what style and how it relates to the reason. Then go looking for the best artist for that style who will make it fit and translate it.
This really is the first step in the process of getting a tattoo. It is also probably the hardest step. When you are choosing your tattoo design, you should take a few things into consideration. The location on your body, the size, the style and colouring, and the meaning. Then think carefully about the location? If you are planning to have your first tattoo placed in a very visible place on your body (like fore-arms, calves, ankles, neck, etc.) you may want to consider, would it be appropriate for your work etc?
The experts say – It’s an idea to keep it clean and classic. Don’t put too much detail in a small area, or mix genres i.e. dragons with roses and someones name on top of it. You want it to represent love, beauty and commitment not a mess of different messages.
Then go searching for a good artist that can make it all happen.
What designs are dads getting? Check out these 20 cool dad tattoos here and for celebrity tribute tattoos – see some of those tattoos here