Week 13: Finding and Connecting the Missing Family Pieces

A few weeks ago, I shared a story about the importance of Going Back to Move Forward—about filling family voids. No matter how successful we become in overcoming life’s challenges, the one thing that we cannot do is escape our roots. Within the hour, I will turn my rhetoric into reality when I meet with paternal relatives to finally embrace a heritage that has been lost to me for 30 years.

This is my choice. And it is this power of choice that will lead me through the fear of rejection and hopeless wilderness of bitter feelings that threaten to derail this process. Earlier in the week, I shared an intimate realization with my friends on Facebook. Since that insight influenced my decision to reach out to my paternal family, I have decided to share it with all of you in the spirit of the Coalition’s journey to Celebrate Strong Families.

How to Receive Your Heart’s Desires (April 7, 2010)

I have just put this whole thing together – the secret, the key that I’ve been searching for, praying for, and wishing for. I am not driven by the desires of my heart but rather by the voids therein. Our heart’s desires come from a place of purity, a source of divinity. Thus, they are in perfect balance by nature. However, the voids, the blanks, and the unfinished business in our hearts disrupt this perfect balance and turns something so beautiful and so natural into a fight for survival.

This is the meaning of the vision I had about Sal a few weeks ago when I felt like I was doomed to make the same mistakes. Sal—a great man for whom I cared deeply and who died almost 14 years ago—is a void in my heart that I obviously still haven’t completely filled. Straddling it is the beautiful desire planted in my heart by God to have a family of my own. Any shift in my life, in my thinking, or in my emotions disrupts this delicate balancing act. The void shifts and tilts, and in slides the beauty of God’s promises to me. In order to save them—to keep them from being swallowed up into that darkness—I amplify them, try to augment them somehow so that they become too big to be eaten up by the void. So that they become invincible. So that they come true.

This is how I’ve lived my life up until this point. I have had so many voids and emotional holes that I overcompensated and tried to force something good to happen so that my dreams wouldn’t be lost to me forever. Yet, in the end, I pushed away the very thing I was trying to embrace. In the end, the void was still there. Nothing can stop its destructive forces but to properly fill it with that which was missing in the first place. It’s like trying to build a house along a fault line. You can build it solidly—perfectly—but one false move of external circumstances and the whole thing will come crumbling down. I have to fill the void with like materials, with the original missing material, with the original truth, before anything solid can be built and can survive.

I finally get that. I finally understand that. I have flirted with this idea and spoke about it, but it didn’t really click until now. I have filled many voids by reconnecting and rebuilding my relationship with my immediate family over these past 2 years. So much of the love that I incessantly sought in romantic relationships, I found in my mom, siblings, nieces and nephews—for that was the love that was originally missing. That was the love I was actually longing for.

I have filled the void left by losing Sal—well almost. There is still about 1-3% left in order to completely level it off. At the present moment, I don’t know what that is or what’s needed to finally transform that hurt into peace. Then, there are 2 more voids to fill: (1) my dad and knowing my paternal heritage and (2) my maternal grandfather and knowing that heritage. No husband and children will fill the loss of love that exists in my heart by not having these two figures in my life. I have to fill those holes with as much of the original material as is possible. My grandfather is gone, but I can still try to learn who he was and learn about his family and meet those relatives. My dad is still here, and I can learn as much about his family as well.

Once I do that, I know that when God presents me with the man that He has chosen to be my life partner and delivers to me the children that He has introduced me to so many times in my visions—I know that I will welcome them into my life because they will make my happiness sweeter and not because I am trying to overcompensate for the unhappiness left by past losses. When that moment comes, I know that I will be able to calmly walk towards my destiny because I will no longer be running from a troubled past.

Our heart’s desires are not planted there by our Higher Power to compensate for past hurts. They are gifted to us simply because God knows that those desires brought to life will be the icing on the cake. But first, the cake has to already be baked, molded, and cooled before you can begin to decorate it.

If life isn’t going quite the way you envisioned it for yourself, find what went missing in your past and fill that void with the original truth. Only then can you receive and enjoy all the blessings you were meant to have.

An Opportunity to Celebrate

I will repeat my comments from the Week 10 post. The time has finally come for me to go back and fill in the missing pieces of my family, my ancestry. Moving forward with the Walk demands that I take a walk back down a path that’s been hidden from view. I need to know where I came from. I need to know who I am. I need to fill the void with the only substance that will satiate my deepest yearnings—the truth. Where there is truth, there is also acceptance and fulfillment. And where there is acceptance and fulfillment, there is love and healing. I am excited!

Share Your Story

I invite you to share how you have taken the initiative to oust old resentments and bitterness and reached out to family members from which you have become separated. How did it enhance the bond with your current family members? How did the new knowledge affect other aspects of your life personally and professionally? Did the new connections and bonds continue to grow?

Please share your story as a comment to this post on our official Sights ‘n Sounds Blog to offer encouragement for individuals seeking to fill their own family voids.

Follow your heart and you shall never be led astray.