Never Had Biscuits
It had everything inside it but never
any Danish Biscuits
I swear every home has seen one of these tins inside their home. My grandmother never went without her “butter bik-ees” and you could tell she liked the ones with the sugar sprinkled on top. Many people love a biscuit and this one is perfect dunked in a cup of tea, in the afternoon whilst you have a quick “spell”.
However, one thing that was true was that these tins very rarely contained any biscuits. Usually used to store sewing odds and bods. I remember my grandmother having buttons in many of the tins and my grandfather stored greasy nails and screws he hoarded for his rainy day projects.
Not to long ago I was asked by a family to see their 80yr old mother for some sessions. The mother no longer wanted to get out of bed and was restricted to a wheel chair. I agreed to see her.
As this faint shadow was wheeled into the room I already knew that this woman was simply in the transition phase of her life. Her children’s eyes gleamed with hope and were convinced that she was just tired and in need of some motivating.
For protection of the family we will name this woman Skye. Skye was so exhausted she could barely speak. I asked the children to leave the room. I got down on my knees, took her hands and the conversation proceeded exactly like this.
Trish - “What do you want?”
Skye - “To take the long sleep”
Trish - “What is stopping you?”
Skye - “The children have such hope in me” with this she burst into tears. She was grieving her own death. Something that I can only imagine as the heaviest burden that anyone could carry.
I took a deep breath and told her the tale of two buckets.
I came across a story about an elderly Chinese woman who had two large buckets. Each bucket hung on the ends of a long pole, which she carried across her neck. One of those buckets had a crack in it and the other bucket was perfect. The perfect bucket always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the house. But the cracked bucket arrived only half full.
For a full two years the Chinese woman went daily to the stream with the two buckets and she would carry home one and one half buckets of water. Of course, the perfect bucket was proud of its accomplishments. The cracked bucket however, was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been created to do.
After two years of what the cracked bucket perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house and you work so hard.”
The old woman smiled and said, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other bucket’s side? I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water the flowers. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace my house and give me so much joy. Without you Skye the world would never be blessed with your beautiful children and grandchildren. You have worked hard your entire life and now is the time for rest”
With this she smiled and said “Thankyou” and then asked me to give them a message at the end of next week. I agreed.
That night Skye passed peacefully in the early hours.
The following week I asked the daughters of Skye to speak with me. The message I was to relay was -
”The sweetest treat I like to eat is behind the garage wall. Sweet treats are treasures best shared with all”
Her daughter looked confused (bloody hell I was confused). Sandra the eldest joked that her mother always spoke in riddles. They took me into the garage. It was an old tin shed except the back wall, it was built from hand sawn, rough timber planks.
We shone the torches from our phones on it and vaguely made out a blue reflection.
The youngest daughter Madeline, pulled off a piece of timber and low and behold the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with Danish biscuit tins. Madeline opened one tin and inside were black cylinders that you used to keep old camera film in. Each tin contained about 20 of these cylinders and by guessing their was at least 200 tins in the wall.
As she opened the camera cylinder each cylinder was full of $1 coins (each cylinder held $20 in 1 dollar coins). Madeline laughed and said that her mother was always collecting the camera cylinders and always asked for change in $1 coins. They had assumed over the years she like to have a few dollars spare for the pokies (even though none of them remembered her ever going very often).
Skye had put away a small fortune over the years. I never asked how much as it was not my business. What was my business was to ensure that I used my NLP and Hypnosis skills to assist my client in healing and delivering a message of hope.
Sometimes as therapists we have to go the extra mile. Even if that extra mile is a confusing one.
