Here is a story of a good coaching friend of mine, Katalin Hankovszky, that made me realize once again that we can choose how we approach others and what topics we focus on:
“My mum was dying. By that time we all knew that, and SHE knew that also: a highly intelligent and burning engaged person in her 61th year. So she called her three adult kids to say Farwell before she goes to the hospital for maybe never return.
As I called her back (you can’t leave your mother’s last message just in the combox unanswered), she told to me, how much she tried to be a good mother and didn’t succeed. She shared with me some memories, when she should have to act much better. Strange, but one of them -me, 14, crossing a big empty space in front of our house after the car accident with my father, she, standing and waiting for me at the window, knowing already, that something was wrong – so this one is one of my first memories of being countable and trustworthy, sort of adult. So I started something like arguing, trying to correct the story in her mind, how supporting and understanding she was then for me, how much she took me in a loving harbour and sent out for life.
Our phone call ended on this and some more disagreement, I went back to my work. Arriving at my desk I recognised: It’s not what I wanted to say in the last earthly conversation with my mother! On my way back to the phone, generosity came up to leave her her own memories. And I just told her what I wanted to: some of my favourite mum-stories, and how much they meant to me. We laughed and had some tears and laughed again.
And yes, she died in the hospital.”
Katalin Hankovszky is a solution focused coach and trainer in Switzerland – www.brief-learning.com
