Reflections on Mother’s Day

My mother passed away in July.

This was my first year celebrating Mother’s Day without her on the planet.

I found myself tender and reminiscing about things that I wish I could take back - Things I wish I could get a “redo” for so that I could make it better.

It isn’t that I had a horrible relationship with my mom. Quite the contrary.

But, like most moms of her era, my mother didn’t encourage me to be my authentic self or speak my mind. In her world, safety came first and safety was created by a “go along and get along” attitude that involved much suppression. I spent many teen years resenting her inability to speak up to my father, to vocalize anything she wanted, or protest his narcissistic and sexist tendencies. But she never did, nor did she cheer when I began to have a voice of intolerance and desire for change.

The byproduct was the usual of our days: My mother bore three daughters who each were timid, terrified of being different, obsessed with outer appearances, and frail on the inside. 

She didn’t know any better. I don’t feel she should be blamed. Her mother and her mother and her mother before her did the same. It’s all they knew.

This Mother's Day, I found myself thinking a lot about what I’d hope I’d accomplished in my generation, for what my own daughters might recall of life with me as their mom. 

Not in a morbid way, but just reflecting on the qualities they might most appreciate, passed down from me. 

The list I created included these wishes and I realize that I wish them for you too.

Faith. To have a keen awareness that the Divine, Beloved, God is always supporting, loving, and caring for you. There isn’t a time you are ever alone.

Truth. A deep commitment to always being truthful and seeking the truth, even when (especially when) everyone else is satisfied with the illusions of truth.

Compassion for all. A desire for kindness and connection with all living things, including an understanding that we are no better or worse than another. When we see each other as valued in the comic universe that is all love, we all matter, equally, no matter your sex, race, religion, or origins. That you lose the judgment and embrace inclusion for all. 

Inner wisdom. Trust in the deep, sage guidance within your heart, where all answers lie, where the ego perspective is eliminated.

Loved. May you always feel loved, even when we didn’t agree or see eye-to-eye, even when one of us needs space, when challenges take us down and celebrations take us higher. 

Freedom. May you feel valued for all your qualities, the messy bits and beautiful ones too. May you embrace your uniqueness and feel it to be a gift. May you believe in your voice, your heart, and your mind and use it to be on purpose. And may you come to know and respect the gift of being a woman and have the freedom to stand out, speak up, scream if you must. May you have the freedom to choose a life solo or with a partner of your choosing — but only one that will honor and respect you as equal, never something less than. 

So now what?

Time to get to work. I begin again each day with this list, ensuring that we have conversations laced with these messages, ensuring that they get the support they need to stay on track, ensuring that I don’t waiver, even when it gets tough, in the face of others who remind me how much easier it is to just “go along and get along.” I believe we’ve been doing that for too long.