My mum passed on New Year’s Eve day last, and now I stand on the cusp of the first Mother’s Day since. I am certain she now better understands me and that is a comfort. But we, or perhaps it is I, who will have to wait for another time to fill in all the cracks; stress-fractures caused by the weight of this world’s burdens and separated our hearts. Like me, she didn’t choose to whom she was born or the timing of her entrance, although her exit she yearned for long before it came. She was exhausted by all she knew and all she had forgotten.
My mum passed on New Year’s Eve day last, and more than a few times in the last days I have been reminded that it’s time to send her flowers and a note, and then I remember. It is in these spaces in between busy that the sneaker wave catches me and knocks me slightly sideways. Our Mothers are the ones who held us into being, carried us safe while we rode the waves within, practicing for a life of shifting landscapes while trusting in the invisible’s embrace. Like those the first glimpses of faith we are bewildered, but still we came out trusting, having been already washed while anchored deep within the gated waters. Though it took the shadow of death for her to see the depths of her participation, she only perceived a fraction of its scope while in this world.
My mum passed on New Year’s Eve day last, and left me thinking about fireworks. One solitary flare burst from the earth and arcs into the darkness. Those with eyes to see are captured by its presence, entranced with expectancy and eager for the outcome. And it is always a surprise. So often we think of ourselves as only the solitary flare, rising upward from the earth trying to break free from the gravity of earth. We are so aware of the broken parts that we have little hope for outcomes. And that lonely flare dies just before it explodes in light and color, forming quickly shifting and free-falling wonder for those with eyes to see. I think my mum now has those eyes and looks upon her own life in ways to which she was blind while here. She didn’t know that brokenness at most infects to six or seven generations while each kindness, each act of the forgiving, each prayer uttered in the tension doubt exerts, each momentary wholesome laughter, each touch so gentle in its purity of intention, each and every good and right and pure and loving gesture ripple to a thousand generations.
My mum passed on New Year’s Eve day, and left me sad for all our sadness and praying for our eyes that do not see, and deeply grateful and comforted that she at last has sight!
