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Friday, May 8, 2009

Mother's Day 2009

Well, ladies, we have made it another year, working the best job on the planet. Being a mother has been the most humbling and beautiful experience I could ever ask for. The little souls who look to me for guidance, for permission, for help, for comfort, cuddles, and loves are the source of the most pure form of joy I believe can be felt on this Earth. It’s the closest comparison and representation to heaven I can imagine.
The realities of motherhood are evident in the back-pages of this blog. Moms have good days and bad days, and I think we’ll all do a bit of a “number” on our kids in one way or another. I was chatting with some book-club members and read about some other women’s takes on how parents influence their kids. My point that I added was very simple, but I stand by it:
I truly believe that every decision my parents made during my childhood was what they believed would be in their children's best interest -yet because of their own internal flawed nature and views, their actions were skewed and damaging in their own way. The important piece to remember is that no person is perfect: yet these imperfect people have somehow been trusted with the enormous responsibility of raising new human beings -helping to shape their characters and lives. It's the human-ness of the parents that give the kids (if they choose to take it as such) the balance of what life really has to offer. Life is not all roses and will not always come out with a satisfying ending to different circumstances. I believe the reality in which we find ourselves -and the allowance of humanity we give ourselves as parents is necessary to raise (and be ourselves) a well-rounded human being, much more able to function in a realistic world.
Mom, I have learned a million important lessons from you, and want you to know that you did something really well: I have a perspective of an imperfect person, who can see through an imperfect light how wonderful you truly are. I can’t hold either of my parents to a “standard” in which I think they should have met (even when it comes to diplomacy with car insurance!), I can only appreciate the lessons I have learned from what good and what not good happened in my child-hood. I have the ability now to communicate with others –and to have empathy with situations that I myself might not have had to live through. I have now the gift of compassion for many whom there might not be much patience or understanding. I live now with the truth that the human-face on a parent is necessary for a child to be able to grow and build their own character. I love you so dearly, and thank you for my gifts that came directly from your heart. You’re one of my sincerest heroes and I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am to be your daughter.

Happy mother’s day to all my peeps out there –be you a mother, an auntie, a friend, or a child who appreciates your own mother.