Trust; the way a child feels about their parent, a dog feels about its owner, a child towards a grandparent, a spouse to spouse….. how do we define it or explain how we lose it?
I don’t know what was wrong with me, when I was a kid. I loved to jump… I was like a little Mexican Jumping Bean… My Dad tells the story of standing in front of the barn working on something; I had climbed to the top of the old two story barn; was only about five, and said, “Daddy should I jump?” He said, “I don’t care.”, never in a million years thinking I would. He said he saw a shadow come over his shoulder, and he looked and I had landed in the hay pile next to him. I jumped off of everything…one afternoon I was practicing my jumping bean routine and Dad had tired of it. He came upstairs, in our old farm house and said, “I’m going to break you of your jumping.” He proceeded to have me jump off of everything: beds, dressers, chairs, and finally the banister of the stairs. He caught me every time, until the bannister. I jumped and he stepped back. When I landed on the floor, I asked him why he hadn’t caught me. He said, “Don’t trust anyone, not even your Papa.” He told me later that his father had said the same thing to him, at some point in his life. I understood little of trust at that age, and only thought about it retrospectively later. How sad it is not to be able to trust.
I don’t jump anymore: I’m afraid of heights and would probably break an ankle, or a hip. 🙂 I’m not very good at trusting either. Do you trust? Who would you let catch you if you jumped. I have seen the trust fall demonstrated at conferences. You fall back into a colleagues arms…. scary!
I do still try…trusting with bits at a time…my husband, our children, (I trust most dogs!) working on it! Working on trust leads to disappointment sometimes. My oldest son told me that I always expect people to do the right thing and that’s why I’m disappointed. I do expect people to do the right thing and I’m tough; I can stand a little disappointment as long as there’s the chance… Trust!
Peace……
Loving and Surviving 