Reaffirming my commitment to my family, I didn’t publish a blog post that I had spent hours writing.

Recently a family member went through a difficult patch because of a health issue.

I am being extremely vague, because of my commitment to my family.

This is a very brief explanation of an event, which began when I travelled to help a family member for a week. They were on the run every day, dealing with the issue mentioned above.

I experienced many emotions over the course of my stay, but the overwhelming feeling was awe at the strength and fortitude I had seen.  And I felt that it would be important to write about what I has seen, heard and learned.

I wrote a blog post about my trip, the things that I had seen and the strength of the people involved. I had purposely written the post without names or any identifying information.

It turned out to be one of my better posts, probably because of the depth of my emotions and the pure humanity that I witnessed.

The Unexpected Reaction

I thought it was important to give the parties involved a heads up, so I sent a copy to them before I published the post. I was totally unprepared for the reaction that I received.

They were extremely upset that I had written about their personal story. They asked me not to publish the post, even though I had written it in a way that was impossible to identify those involved.

I explained that my intention was only to strengthen others that may have to navigate difficult situations. No go. They didn’t want their story in the public domain.

My first reaction was disbelief. Why not? Especially since, the post contained no names or information. And then, in truth, I was a bit annoyed. After all, I had spent hours writing the post, and it wouldn’t be possible to write a new one by the time I needed to publish.

I realized that I may not be seeing the situation objectively and spoke to another family member. That person helped me to see that the family members with the health issue were very private people and didn’t want their story on the internet, period.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but I didn’t publish the post. And in so doing, I reaffirmed my commitment to my family.

Stay the Course

And that is why I am writing this post, because commitment means that when the going gets tough, you stay the course.

We make many sacrifices, throughout life, when it comes to family. The sacrifices are endless and everyone can relate to the sacrifices in personal time, finances, socially, and the biggy…sleep!

The sheer volume of the little things that we do every day for our families in the physical, emotional, financial and moral realm can be overwhelming. But we accept it. Because it is expected;

And that is what we do. Because… even when it is hard, very hard, that is what we signed up for. It is the expected difficulty and we rise to the occasion. And because of that commitment and the amount of giving involved, so we reap the benefits.

True Commitment

But sometimes the commitment means that we are hit hard in a way that is unexpected. We have to give in a way that wasn’t expected, that didn’t seem to be part of the job description.

And for everyone it is different. What may be hard for you may not be hard for me, and vise versa. But when the challenge comes, it is the one thing that takes your breath away.

That is what happened to me, after I wrote the post that was never posted. The unpost. It was really hard to let it pass.

Hard to just let go of the work that I had done and the depth of feeling that I had experienced and the ideas that I wished to express. It was hard to press that delete button.

But that is what I did. I had to acknowledge that it was not about me or my feelings or the time that it took. It was about being sensitive to the feelings of another.

So I pressed delete.

And in doing so, I reaffirmed my commitment to my family.