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| Mom and me, September 4th, 2019 |
I shared briefly with my 93 year old mother about the ceremony and the focus, reflecting that last year the focus was on our preciousness — how we're all born precious — and that this year the focus was on gratitude. My mom was silent as she sat next to me at the dinner table in the dining room of her assisted living. Then I watched her eyes well up and a single tear slowly work its way down her check.
"Mom, I wonder what you're thinking right now?"
"Destiny."
Wow, this was a big word coming from my mother who's had Alzheimer's for years now.
"I wonder what destiny means for you?" I inquired.
"Everyone has their own destiny," Mom replied. She then struggled to put more words together — "I'm trying to think of how to explain it..." Then my mother asked, "Do you have people who you can confide in?" "Yes, there's you and Ron and good friends."
And that was it. There was no more that my mom could go on to say to clarify beyond these few words... although as she sat quietly with a serious look on her face and yet one more tear that slowly made its way down her cheek, I could feel her trying to put more words together that would make sense. But without success. And maybe this will be the only conversation that my mother and I ever have about destiny.
But we do talk about gratitude. A lot.
And I couldn't imagine ever talking about gratitude or destiny or confiding in anyone with my first mother, the one who had been brutal and who had built impenetrable walls around her heart for most of our lives together — until 6-1/2 years ago when she was first treated for her mental illness. And the impossible became possible.
And once we were back in her apartment, and as I stood arranging flowers because it's "flower day," I could hear music playing from my teenage years through Mom's open door in the hallways of this wonderful assisted living where Mom has lived for nearly 6 years now. I can hardly say how weird and funny it sometimes is to hear songs like Born To Be Wild (my theme song at age 17) or G-L-O-R-I-A, etc. ringing through the hallways or dining room.
Or how indescribable it is to be arranging flowers in different vases with my sweet mom looking on — which is something we do about every two weeks — and hearing songs playing that take me back decades ago, sometimes triggering memories of a time when I was desperate to escape the same person who now sat beside me and whose shared moments together are such an exquisite treasure.
Wow....
In our women's ceremony this past weekend we were invited, as best as we can, to hold it all — the pain and the joy, the trauma and the gratitude, the heartbreak and the gifts, the losses and the Grace and Love. Because this is life. This is being human. To have our hearts broken wide open again and again and, if we are deeply blessed, to find in those moments of great broken-heartedness some blessing, something to hold with deep gratitude.
There have been so many incredible teachers in my life. And this certainly includes my mother. And today I hold it all. Both mothers. And all the incredible teachings about who we truly are under all our flailing about and endless wandering and times of hurt and confusion. Under it all is the beauty of our true nature. It's always there, even when all evidence appears to say otherwise.
Every time I look into my mother's eyes, I am reminded of this today. This miracle follows the first 60 years of my life where my mother and I simply could not gaze into each other's eyes. For me, my mother was so not safe, so dangerous. And I had thought that my mother's soul was gone. I was so wrong.
And as I was saying goodbye after the flowers were done and placed about her apartment, my mama looked into my eyes and smiled and asked, "Who loves you?" And I smiled and pointed at Mom and said, "You do." She smiled and her inner light was bright and beautiful. And I asked my mother, "And who loves you?" And she continued smiling and responded, "You do."
For most of my life, my mother couldn't say, "I love you." That was the first mother, the one therapist after therapist had said that there was nothing that I could ever do to get my mother to love me...
Life can be so astonishing, so absolutely mind blowing and wild and amazing. And what extraordinary lessons we are offered. And, truly, as we shed layer after layer of our illusions and more and more of the fog clears, doesn't it become clear that we all here to learn about and embody Love?
This has certainly been my experience. And, today, and after many, many years of coming to see and dismantle the walls that I've unknowingly built against love, I am left with this overarching and boundless, boundless gratitude for the power of Grace and Love. And for the truth of the beauty that resides within us all. May we claim this beauty, this unlimited capacity to Love.
With wonder, gratitude, and love...
Molly
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