I wish I could unsubscribe to all the email reminders from
merchandisers about Mother's Day. It doesn’t apply to me one iota any more. I
don’t have grandmothers or a mother.
Not living, anyway.
But my mother’s presence is heavy in the air today, as it was
last night. My sister is in the woods singing to her, and all of us children
are the beneficiaries.
Last night as I was going to sleep, under the almost-full
moon, I had a flash of a memory. I pulled on the familiar tale, drawing it out
again, as I have so many times before. The story is of a t-shirt, one of my
mother’s many gifts to me.
I cherish it because it represents a truth about me, but I
cherish it more for the words she spoke to me as I held it aloft to examine it.
It made me special then, as it does now.
Mommy and Daddy returned from a rare trip away from us kids;
they had the opportunity to travel to Alaska, thanks to my mother’s parents. While
my parent’s cruised Glacier Bay, my dad’s parents came to stay with us for the
week. I was probably 11; Tracy,
16; Ian, 4.
We gathered around them when they got home, basking in
Mommy’s radiant love and hearing stories of what it was like of the far side of
our country. They dispensed the requisite gifts that travel bestows, and we
gathered closer to open and ogle the thoughtfully considered gifts we each
received.
When she gave me this shirt she said, “I brought you this because of any of my children you will do something like this.” I’ve remembered this time and time again throughout my life.
Sometimes I wonder if I would have ever had the courage to
take any of the travels I’ve made if it weren’t for my mother offering such
empowering words to me and handing me a symbol of strength to which I could
cling. I have, during many challenges, remembered this shirt, and said to
myself “of any of my mother’s children, I will…”
Other times, I feel like her motherly knowing –of knowing me
to my absolute, pure essence allowed her to purchase just the thing that
captured what she knew to be true about my spirit – and convey it “you will do
something like this.”
What special gifts have you been given that you cherish?
1 comment:
I was once given a guitar pick made out of turtle shell by my friend Sharon. She is a free-spirited hippy-ish dentist and acupuncturist whom the universe decided to bring me together with many years back. We are great friends that hardly ever talk, but it is always a pleasure when we do. She brings things out in me…creatively. I rarely use the pick. To be honest it is not the most conducive to playing fluidly. However, I often think of it when I am jamming. There are times when I am 45 minutes into a serious improvisational jam with my mates and I have the pick in mind, and where it came from. Just when I think I can’t get any deeper into the folds of the music, I am on the back of that ancient sea creature and diving down deep through space and time. Then the music truly takes on a life of its own.
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