I absolutely love being a mother

I absolutely love being a mother. It is one of the most rewarding roles I have ever taken on in my life as well as one of the most challenging. Wanting to give my children as much rope as I can so they can fly while at the same time keeping a hold of the rope so they know they are loved no matter what. Trying to find that delicate balance of holding on while letting go. Of knowing my children are here to live their lives. Not mine.

I look into their eyes sometimes and am mesmerized by what I see, by what I feel. I look at their bodies and am surprised by how much they are growing and maturing, becoming adults very quickly. I listen to their words and am proud of their depth and breadth of life.

I was reminded of this the other night when my family went out for dinner to celebrate my husband’s birthday. Sometimes I found myself having an out of body experience – looking on my family with pride from a position outside of us.

To watch and listen to my son and daughter – their quick wit, mature sense of humor and ability to deliver one liners without changing their expressions is so interesting to watch. And then seeing them sometimes reverting back to that place of need – that place between child and adult is so fascinating. So exhilarating to know they have their whole lives still ahead of them if that is what the Divine has in store for them.

Their recollection of events and information they have picked up along the way and being able to relay their understanding and comprehension of it with such conviction and passion made my heart sing. Listening to them having their own opinions about life and what they have learned is heartwarming because I know they are becoming their own people able to stand on their own two feet. Individuals sprung from the same DNA but using it according to their own will.

I loved listening to them, not as their mother, but as an individual sometimes just so I could hear them from an outsider’s perspective and be able to not judge so I could let them go. Let them explore who they are and what they want without my influence. Guiding them but not directing them. As Khalil Gibran says we are the vessels through which they come.

I love watching my children interacting with each other. The love and respect they have for each other is a beautiful thing to witness because they have a bond that I had always hoped for when we decided to have more than one child. Allaying my fears that one child would feel more loved than the other. Watching them together lets me know they both know they are loved in their own special way. And in turn they are able to love each other so deeply and openly.

To be honest I was afraid to have another child after our son because I feared I would not be able to love another in the way I fell in love with him when he was born. But love has a funny way of splitting itself while remaining whole at the same time when it comes to motherhood and children. As it did and does for me right now.

The love I have for my children is unlike any love I have ever known. It is an instinctual love full of pride and reverence. It is a love that comes from my core and expands with each child. It is pure and absolutely unadulterated.

I never wanted to be a mother because I was afraid I would leave my children before they were ready as my mother did with me when I suddenly became a motherless daughter at the age of 13. But what I realize more than anything now that I am a mother is my mother leaving me so abruptly and unexpectedly, though heartbreaking at the time and still to some extent now, was preparing me to become the caring and compassionate mother I am today for my children.

Her death taught me to never take anything for granted. To be present for my children. To love them unconditionally and to let them know all the time how much I love them and how much they mean to me so if I have to leave them suddenly and move on to the next world, they will know they were loved and will continue to carry my love with them no matter where they go.

To teach them that a life filled with love is much greater than a life without love.  To show them to live as fully as they can and as compassionately as they can because tomorrow is promised to no one. Lessons I would never have learned had I not become a mother. That’s why I love being a mother because by becoming a mother I know so much more about love, compassion, faith, forgiveness, trust and letting go while holding on without strangling.

In gratitude to my children for choosing me as their mother and to my husband for choosing me as his partner allowing us to be the growing and loving family we are today. Namaste

Touching story of a man who sees cancer as his gift

My husband told me a touching story the other night. The story about a man we know who looked death in the eye only to experience the greatest joy he has ever felt. The story of a man who told my husband that if he had to do it all again, he would not change a single thing. You see this man is fighting cancer – an aggressive cancer that came out of the blue. A cancer that nearly claimed him on several occasions. A cancer that has caused him so much pain. Yet he sees this cancer, his cancer as a gift, as something he would not change.

Through cancer this man has been able to see with clear eyes the suffering in the world. So much pain that he was not aware of before or had chosen to ignore. He has seen people with the fronts of their face completely ravaged by cancer but still these people encourage him on and tell him he is going to be okay. He has seen children, young children, as skeletal as he was during his worst who still find reason to play and have fun.

He has heard the anguish of a mother who wanted the doctors to know she could not die because she has children. Heard her anguished cries to save her from death. To give her more time. And then when she realized she was not alone in the room, walked to his curtains, opened them, stood and looked at him. Their eyes locking. Their souls connecting. Their stories told to each other without words ever being spoken. Their shared pain understood in that twenty second frame. An intimate moment, without uttering a word, connecting them on a level he has never connected with anyone in his life before. Letting him know there is more to communication than words. More to life than we can ever understand until we face our own mortality. Our own glimpse into death.

He told my husband about the day he asked to walk outside after undergoing intense chemo treatments. Robbing him of his vitality and strength. Refusing a taxi ride to the apartment he was to share with his wife for the weekend because he felt the urge to be outside. Felt the urge to feel and experience life. Not through a window. Not through an enclosure but through being in it. And when he got outside, he looked up and around and saw life through the eyes of a child experiencing it for the first time – the blue sky, the green grass, the abundance and vividness of colour from the flowers and he began to sob. Uncontrollably sob because what he was taking in was life at its very best in its simplest form. The beauty of nature. He was seeing and experiencing pure and unadulterated joy in a way he had never experienced it before.

He fell to the ground - his senses overwhelmed and titillated by the beauty he was experiencing through the eyes of a man who had been to hell and back again during his chemo treatments. Rendering him speechless because he was so full of joy. So full of life. So full of gratitude. His wife panicking thinking he was in pain. Not realizing what he was experiencing was an appreciation for the beauty that we walk past every single day. The beauty we take for granted. The beauty we do not see or appreciate because it is so every day. So passé.

My husband, without realizing it, was the man’s angel for the day. Allowing him to express all the joy and life he has experienced as a result of his pain. As a result of his cancer. As a result of his brush with death.  My husband said he knew the man needed him on a level he could not explain so he stood and let the man talk. Let the man cry. Let the man feel and express the romance of the life he was living as a result of his pain.

And when the man was done, my husband hugged him and told him he was honored to have had the opportunity to listen and to experience what the man had experienced. That he was honored to have shared such an intimate moment with the man. And then their time was done. Each walking away a different man. One whose burden was less heavy and the other whose step was much lighter.

Because what the man did not realize was that he was my husband’s angel as well. Reminding him about the joy of life from its simplicity. Nudging him to know how quickly life can change and how he too must appreciate living as much as he can.

Two men brought together, my husband and this man, to remind each other there is no greater joy than gratitude and living life as fully as they can. Tears of pain that lead to tears of joy. Joy and pain. Pain and joy – one in the same. Two men in a parking lot framed by life itself. In all its joy and pain. In all their joy and pain. Namaste.