It is a big deal to be someone’s mother. It’s also a big deal to have a mother. I don’t think I fully understood that until private coaching made me aware of the pain people experience when mom is missing in some way.
Only a few years ago I wondered what difference I’d made in the lives of my kids. As a working mom, I worried that the times I wasn’t there had left a negative impact. Today my adult children make sure to let me know life is good. On Saturday while searching through our craft closet, I stumbled upon a list of “Life Goals” my daughter Mandy had written in 2007 at the age of 16. We didn’t talk much back then, yet reading her list showed me that even then she was completely aligned with what I was teaching in my seminars and coaching work. Today I see her living those goals. What more could a mom ask for.
My husband lavishes gift on me each Mother’s Day, possibly because his mother passed away from a stroke over three decades ago. My mom has become mother to us both and we are lucky she’s still around. My mother suffers from dementia and has become very different than the mother who raised me. Somehow Mom’s creative spirit, love for books and passion for gardening have completely disappeared. She sleeps for hours, is silent unless you draw her out and moves very slowly. I find myself grieving for the part of mom that’s gone. Where did she go? Will it happen to me someday?
The mother daughter relationship is complicated. There is nurturing often followed by teen rebellion and the strong pulling away. Yet as a daughter becomes independent, she realizes she’s done so because mom helped her become confident that she could succeed.
It’s no accident that Mother’s Day falls in spring, a time when the natural world gives birth to new life. It makes perfect sense to honor the mothers of the planet. It’s time to stop being surprised by Mother’s Day wishes from strangers and do more to celebrate the mothers and daughters surrounding me every day.
