Mom

Sometimes, all it takes is an hour face to face with my mom to make me feel like I'm normal again.  No matter how scared or alone or out of control I feel, she knows me.

There isn't a day that goes by when I'm not thankful for her.

Today, I'm extra-thankful.

All My Life

Today is my mother's birthday and, while I know many people love their moms, I feel that my relationship with my mother is special.  The story of my childhood is that, when I was a little, my mother began talking to me right away, telling me about her day, the world, speaking to me as her friend, a person she wanted to know, a person with whom she wanted to share her life.  


I grew up knowing what I had to say had value, and that my life was meaningful.  I knew early on that no matter what happened to me, no matter how poor some of my choices or how catastrophic some of my defeats, my mother was behind me in every single thing I did.


Abraham Lincoln wrote, "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life."  My mother has prayed her whole life, as a little Catholic girl on her knees at school, when she taught my brother and I to say our prayers at night, and even now she prays every day for a better life for my brother and I, for my niece, for the world.  


All my life, I have known she was a good, kind, honest, funny, smart, strong woman, and I am happy to say that I think, now, after 59 years, she may finally know all of those things about herself.  The greatest gift she has ever given me is the knowledge that I can accomplish and survive anything.  I have always known I was blessed to know her and today--in celebration of her life--I wanted you to know her, too.


Happy Birthday, Mama.  I love you.

The Angel in the Marble

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”

--Michaelangelo

This morning the winds shake the trees in my neighbors' yards, branches ruffle and shake like an animal wagging itself awake.  I half expect some ancient green bear to rise and start stalking its way back to the home it's been missing all these months during hibernation.  

These trees and their suggestion of dormancy lead me to question ways we isolate ourselves.  The walls we build.  Not just the marble walls of Michaelangelo's statuary, but the intangible walls we erect to protect ourselves from one another.  Are we not, as he wrote, ourselves perfect in attitude and action?  Certainly there are those who misstep, but if we 'hew away the rough walls,'  aren't we likely to see the lovely apparition--the angel in the marble--within each other and ourselves?

I have two friends, men I love, each one a master at building walls.   One blocks himself in against the cold of rejection, the fear of being less than for people he loves.  The angel in him is evident to all, his heart pure, spirit giving, soul true.  We have walked and talked the world to weariness over the past ten years.  I see the trees shaking and know he, too, is waking up, processing the what ifs around him and trying to stay standing.  Today I wish him verticality, the trick of uprightness, one foot in front of the other until you don't have to think about it anymore and what has been a constant concern simply becomes what is.

My second friend finds himself in a labyrinth of his own creation, one with simple, beautiful gifts around some corners and heartbreaking sadness at the dead ends of others.  Would that I were Ariadne, I could smuggle him the clew, let him unwind himself from the maze until he reached all the way back to the beginning and could map it anew, find perspective, start again.  He doesn't believe the angel exists in him, but I promise it does. I have seen it often and it is stunning.  A blindingly beautiful white light that shines on all who are lucky enough to be near him.  Today I wish him sure-footedness, deep breaths in the darkness, familiar patterns and grooves in the walls beneath his searching hands so that he can slowly start to feel his way home.

***

It is mother's day and the woman I am lucky enough to have been born to gave me a great gift years ago: she allowed me to be completely comfortable with who I am, to believe that what I want is right, to know that my dreams and hopes are as valid and necessary as anyone elses. My mother showed me that my own happiness ensures the happiness of the people around me because, if they truly love me, they want nothing more than for me to be happy.  I am blessed that she is my mother and today, in celebration of her, I am trying to pass on her greatest gift which is the knowledge that we all matter.  We all deserve to be happy, and we are all here to help each other become, as Michaelangelo said, revealed.