Picking Up The Pieces by Rudi Richardson (SpirituallyFit.com)

	Picking up the Pieces
	by Rudi Richardson

Hundreds of unwanted pieces of life lie broken and scattered on the floor. Feeling discarded and alienated, these pieces cry out for love and acceptance, but their owner does not wish to acknowledge them, even though he knows they are an integral part of himself. So the pieces begin a ritual of distraction. Using each other for support these splintered pieces of life cut into the owner's thoughts, dreams and feelings and are quite successful in provoking the owner to feel their anguish and pain. Bottom line, the pieces want acceptance by any means necessary. However, these wounded pieces are quite numerous and not all of them can join in on the ritual of distraction. The sidelined pieces, often jealous from being left out, try and bulldoze their way in, but the burden of distraction becomes too heavy for the owner and everyone is back to where they started. This process is repeated over and over and over again.

The broken pieces are important parts of Ritchie's life. They make up his feelings, memories, experiences and his emotional relationship to life situations that he cannot quite resolve or wish to embrace. Oh he tried with drugs and other brief remedies but the glue was only temporary. Now sober, Ritchie looks at the pieces of his life with regret and disdain because they reflect all the negative consequences of his past, which he feels a tremendous amount of shame and sense of failure.

One night Ritchie woke up to find a small dirty, frightened toddler standing on the side of his bed. Terrified, Ritchie thought this was some sort of bad dream..but he could not shake it. The small child shyly began speaking in a foreign language that Ritchie could not totally understand, but one that he had heard before long ago. The child took Ritchie's hand and led him deep inside his memories. The horror and disgust that Ritchie experienced and felt shook the very foundation of his psyche. The child visited Ritchie every night for about a month and each time he came the child revealed to him another memory. Oftentimes Ritchie was terrified and afraid because he felt like a unwilling participant of a horror that both the child and himself had no control over. Shocked, horrified, angry and at times filled with grief, anguish and pity, Ritchie would pick up the child, hold him in his arms and weep uncontrollably. One night while holding the child in his arms Ritchi
e saw that he was holding himself and it was at that moment that Ritchie knew.

About a month later Ritchie was feeling despondent. He asked God, "Why do I judge myself so harsly? Why do I feel so broken and incomplete?" God said, "Ritchie I love you so much." When the toddler came to see you on that first visit didn't you notice a couple pieces of your life sticking out from his pockets? The child couldn't pick them all up, but he tried. When the child began speaking to you in his language he was trying to thank you for protecting him in the only way you knew how. But, Ritchie, you condemn yourself for the very experiences and situations that have aided you and the child's survival to this very day! I will let you in on a little secret Ritchie - your feelings of brokeness will not be resolved until you forgive yourself. You are my son and I am your Father. I love you and purposed you to live and experience life on a deeper level. From this day forward you will witness Heaven, Earth and Hell operating simultaneously and you will realize th
at I have created them all."

It took days for Ritchie to come back to himself after his experience with God. The continual distraction from his pieces of life were getting stronger until Ritchie was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. One night Ritchie was lying on his bed sobbing and he sensed someone else was in the room with him. He looked on the floor and there sat the child trying to put the pieces of his life back together. Moved with love and compassion for the child Ritchie sat on the floor besides him.

My Story

I was born, Udo Ackermann, in Germany on May 28, 1955. My mother was incarcerated for prostition and gave birth to me in a prison in the small Bavarian town of Aichach. I was a product of post-war Germany, and one of the 5,000 German Black children born during the allied occupation of Germany during 1945-1955. Unfortunately, all mixed children of color were scattered throughout Germany to various institutions and orphanages. Germany didn´t want us because of our color. I was immediately taken away from my mother who was still serving time in prison and given over to a foster care family who physically and sexually abused me. Because of the international outcry as to the plight of German Black babies and their need to te adopted, I was adopted by Mr. & Mrs. Claud & Alva Richardson and came over to the U.S. in December 1959.

Life was good for a few years, until my adoptive mother started disenigrating before my eyes because of drug addiction. Although my family was dysfunctional, we maintained a semblance of normalcy, but from an emotional and spiritual standpoint, bankruptcy had already been silently declared. My sister, Pam, who was also adopted, became my friend and comrade as we only had each other to comfort during the times of emotional crisis and upheaval. I began to excel in school, especially in poetry, music and the arts, as these became my expression and catharsis for releasing the pent up feelings inside me. But, at around age 16, I began to rebel, tired of the chaos at home, I turned to drugs which started my slow descent to the streets, prison and eventual deportation back to Germany.

For 32 years I was a drug addict, decending to the lowest depths of society. Living on the streets, homelessness, institutions, mental hospitals. I started suffering from post stress traumatic syndrome because of early childhood sexual abuse, and at the time I was going through these episodes, I thought I had lost my mind. Who would believe my report? So, more drugs in order not to remember, not to feel and not to be a part of the living. Yet, God had a way of working in and through the least likely places in order to begin my healing process. It took prison to get me to finally look at myself and recognize the need for therapy and spirituality. Subsequently, I was deported back to Germany, the land of my birth after living in the U.S. for 45 years, leaving two daughters, and four grandchildren and friends. I felt the world closing on me again.

Coming back to Germany and hearing the German language, people, places, and things, triggered all my early childhood memories and although quite painful and scary, I was able to come through and finally began to feel the the reality of what had happened to me. I am clean from drugs and alcohol and through my many painful experiences I can see and feel life on a deeper level. There is an old Negro spiritual titled, "My Soul Looks Back In Wonder As To How I Got Over." Whenever I hear that song a river rises up inside me and I feel a deep sense of gratitude and joy that can only be released through tears.

Rudi Richardson

www.poetry.com Richardson, Rudi – Please enjoy my poetry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RUDI RICHARDSON is a recovering addict and child abuse survivor. His published poems can be viewed on http://www.poetry.com.

" I obtained the story from my experience. All of it is based on my life." - Rudi Richardson