For My Mother

Posted on by learning to live like water

Going home today. Going to be a long day, a full day. Lots of sadness and lots of joy. I’ll get home about midnight, and probably up at my normal 5:30 or 6 tomorrow. I thought I’d post here what I wrote to say at Mom’s service today. Love and light to everyone.

For My Mother

I really don’t know where to begin, when thinking about the gifts Mom gave us. Yes, a love of reading and books, and writing, for sure. People always say you are blessed if your mother read to you as a child. Well, we were blessed. I still read every night until I fall asleep, a habit formed as a young child snuggled up against my mother in bed. I know that my sisters also experienced this.

There is so much more to that act, the act of reading to us at bedtime, though, than just the reading and the stories. It was such an act of love, for Mom to take time out of her busy busy day, to just be with us, to give us that time with her. I don’t know of any other act that made me feel more loved and secure and safe, than being snuggled up to her, listening to her read, and talking, and being tucked in. I remember playing that game, hugging her at night, in which which we would say “I love you.” “I love you more.” “No, I love YOU more.” Hugging tighter with each back and forth.

I am happy to remember that I played that same game with my own son when he was small. (Well as small as he ever was, lol)

Mom and Dad created a family of the 5 of us. Mom would plan vacations, family time on the boat every weekend, dinners around the kitchen or dining room table together every night. (I don’t want to leave out Dad’s contributions to this. He was always the quiet one doing the work in the background, getting the boat ready, or finding the best route, and doing the bulk of the driving.) At night, she would be grading papers, baking, sewing a new dress for one of us for a semi-formal dance in high-school. Yet still finding the time to put her daughters to bed, and read to us. All of these things were taken for granted by us. That we would go on vacation, that there would be food to eat when we got to the island on the Mississippi, that any time we needed her she would be there. Mom knew the importance of family, because as she said on her 80th birthday celebration when we all gathered (sisters, kids, grandkids, and great grandkids) at the cabin, “you can’t imagine how wonderful this is for me to see you all here, because I never had a family of my own.”

Well, she made one. And in doing so she gave us all one. She created a family, and she created it on a basis of unconditional love. None of us ever went to bed wondering if either of our parents loved us. Never. What a blessing I have come to find out that that is, as I grew into an adult. If I have but one gift to pass on from Mom to my own son, I hope it is the safety and security of knowing that he has value just because he exists. I hope he knows, like I knew, that his mothers love was earned the day he was created.

I love that at the end of her life, during the last difficult 18 months, she still recognized our voices on the phone. She still laughed when we talked to her, even though her life was anything but joyful then. I loved that she could still say “I love you” to us, because it was one of those things she didn’t have to think about.

I’m kind of afraid I could just rattle on here, talking about Mom. Because she was so remarkable, she made such a success of a very difficult life. Her life reminds me of the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, because everything that happened to her, that could have pulled her under, she turned into a positive, and taught us all how to find the good in all things, and forgive all things, and to just love.

So, let us just say that we are all blessed to have had her in our lives. I’m happy that she’s at peace now, with Dad, and my niece. I feel her presence all the time. Anytime I just feel safe, happy, and feel that warm embrace of love, I know Mom is with me. As she is all of us.

Last Full Day of Reunion

Posted on by learning to live like water

Shenandoah

Today was our last full day of family reunion. Tomorrow we will all meet at the cemetery in the town she lived in where my father was buried. We will have a small ceremony for her. The family from here who has been together for these 4 or 5 days, and a couple other of my brother-in-law’s family who knew my mom well. All three of us girls will say something. I have had mine written out for a week. You known that’s the easy part. Reading it, saying it, will be so much harder. For all my words, I’m not a public speaker but I need to say this, for my mother, and I will get through it somehow.

Today we took a ride up to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah. When I get home I’ll load the pics onto the computer and do a small pictoral blog. It is so incredibly beautiful there. Late last winter they had a big fire, that burned 12,000 acres or so, but even in those places, you see life returning. It is odd, you drive down the road and the trees are scorched on one side but not the other, so I guess they were able to keep it from jumping the road. It had to be incredibly hard to fight. There are no access roads to most of the area that burned. Still…to look across the valleys and mountains, was spectacular.

It’s been a wonderful trip. I feel like I really got close to my nieces and nephews, closer than ever before. I know my son now feels like he has extended family, and I hope he doesn’t let them go. I hope he goes to visit his aunts and uncles and cousins.

Today would have been my mom’s 95th birthday. In her honor, my niece made all her favorite foods, and we had such a good time together. This trip has been such a blessing. My stomach issue is gone, finally. Confirmation to me that it was all stress, because I have none here.

I head home tomorrow. Not sure how much I’ll get on here. We are leaving early to make the 2 hour drive to the cemetery, and then going to lunch, and then to the airport, where I catch a 5:45 flight back, and with one connection, get back home around midnight. It will be good to get home. Just wish everyone lived closer so we could hang out every weekend.

Love and light.

Picture is from Google Images. I haven’t uploaded my pics yet.

Inertia

Posted on by learning to live like water

inertia.png

I’m remembering….

How you’d always want me around
When I was preoccupied elsewhere.

Oh you were so sly,
So convincing.

I was dancing to the strumming
Of your inner guitar
I was hopping to the gate
With the key to let you in.

My, how you teased me,
How you’d spin me around,
Whirling, and make me
Come up delightfully dizzy.
Asking for more.

I didn’t want what it was you were offering.
It took me a long time to find out what it was.

I wanted something different,
You just wanted me to keep wanting you.

And I did.

For a long long time.

Til I realized I was dancing alone.
That only you knew the music,
And you weren’t sharing.

Keeping me stuck as is, as was,
Where was, how was

Ahhhh still, you made me laugh,
That was always worth something.

You made me feel like a woman,
That too….was always worth something.

I loved making you feel like a man.
“I’ll make you glad you’re a man”
Was what I used to tell you.

I loved opening Pandora’s Box,
And seeing what flew out of it between us.

Still, though, my feet got tired
Running in the circles of your endless delusions.
And obsessions
And needs……

Inertia and gravity held me in place
at your disposal
At your service.
Holding you steadily in my heart.

Until that state,the inertia, was changed
By an external force.
I didn’t know what the force was.
You did, but you weren’t telling.

I know now…….

It changed forever.
At that moment.
Except….love, love stays.

No one can go back.
The past can’t be undone.
Just tell me, now, in this moment

Was it the best you could do then?
Is it the best you could do now?

Or is there some greater force,
An external force,
That will change things forever
For you too?

Inertia
At the mercy,
But no longer.

Embrace the Joy

Posted on by learning to live like water

Perceive
Feel, taste, touch
Open hearts
Embrace the joy.

Perceive
Oneness,
Inclusiveness
Embrace the joy.

Perceive
No more pain
No more anger
Embrace the joy.

Perceive
Love and belonging
The greater circle
Embrace the joy.

Perceive
That you are loved and
That love never dies
Embrace the joy.

A Shift in Perception

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

Last night, I watched my son slip into his place in the family. Easily, without thought, without effort. Surrounded by those connected to him by blood, but more importantly, connected to him by love. What joy filled my heart as my only child was embraced by cousins, aunts, and uncles who have only seen him a handful of times in his 24 years, but love him and drew him into the circle as if he was with them every day.

I think this morning of my ex-husband and his family, with whom we spent every holiday, all our 32 years together. It so rarely felt like a place of love, so rarely felt like a warm embrace. There were a few of them that were capable and extended that love, but there was more competition than love. There was so much of people trying to prove that they deserved to be there, and more than anyone else. How do I describe the difference?

I describe it as A Course in Miracles. One family knows we are all part of the one great thing, and that love is really the only power we have in the world to change anyone. One family is sure we are all separate from each other, not connected, and that we have to fight for our place here.

My son now not only knows, but feels part of that one thing, and I am forever forever grateful to the people, my family, who made it possible. The love my mother and father showered on us has so obviously, so easily, so beautifully passed down from them to their children, grandchildren.

God I am so grateful today. Grateful to have left that darkness behind.

I think my son actually got excited about his move to Colorado last night, talking to his cousins about it. They are all older than him, and have more life experiences. I just think it eased his mind so much to know he isn’t really all alone, and that he has more real family than just me.

I saw the shift, I felt the shift, in his perception, from fear to love.

Which A Course In Miracles tells us, is the miracle.

Love and light:)

Awesome Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

OMG! I had the best time today with my sisters, and our kids. Oh man, I have not laughed like that in so long. My son has not seen my younger sisters 4 kids since he was 12. He’s 24. They get a long so famously, it’s amazing. Like siblings almost. It’s incredible.

It gave me so much pleasure to watch my son be part of a bigger family, and enjoy it, and love it. He is so happy tonight, because suddenly he’s understanding that he is part of something bigger. It’s just a joy for me to see.

My son is the baby, the rest of the kids are from ages 30 to 42. But dang he is so much like my younger sisters sons, one in particular. Same kind of humor, expressions, etc. The two of them had us dying we were laughing so hard.

Feeling blessed tonight. Really blessed.