Today a nod to all the mothers who have gone, because it’s my mother’s birthday.
These days I don’t miss her but I feel her presence very strongly. The connection is more revealed.
I feel her older woman’s body when I’m on my walk and my muscles ache or when I wish I was more nimble when I’m getting out of the car with my bags of groceries.
I hear her voice when I’m explaining something to a grandchild or when I laugh at something funny they’ve just said.
I am pleasantly surprised by how much sense she made. And her elder’s kind of wisdom is appreciated so much more by me now.
I’d like to reach out and have a cup of tea with her, sharing what we know, now that I know (almost!) as much as she did. But that is not to be.
And I wonder, is that the nature of it? That all you can do is pass the knowledge along. In a way that’s good because it can’t go round in circles, in a tight unyielding loop.
My friend Katherine wrote a terrific tribute to her mother I posted once before. It deserves the spotlight again, so here it is.