Missing Mother
It’s the second Mother’s Day to pass that I grieve the loss of my mother. She hasn’t died, to the best of my knowing. She simply stopped calling, stopped receiving calls, changed her residence and likely her phone number either that or it is perpetually turned off for the last year and a half. Without a word as to why, the egoic mind fills in the blanks with a myriad of motives and emotions. “She couldn’t accept my wheelchair.” “She felt I wasn’t doing enough to recover.” “She never really loved me.” And the beat goes on. All stories. None of them true, though each likely accurate. I realize my conditioned mind will likely always stir the pot of cellular memories of mother.
In my enquiry I often wonder what it is that I feel I am missing. Is it the present moment MIA-Mom or the moments she wasn’t present when I felt I needed her during my growing years? Was it really my mother that I missed or Carol Brady, Shirley Partridge and Jaime Sommers combined into the ideal idol of the matriarch?
I see in my own children such strong longings for parental approval. “Did I do good?” “How do I look in these jeans?” “I made you a cup of tea. Am I your favorite now?” We laugh and joke about my aloof and non-demonstrative nature, but at the end of the day each of my offspring know they are loved unconditionally, admired for who they are and valued as the unique light that they shine upon my path.
It seems our deepest hooks into suffering come from our closest relationship paradigms. Like a big jigsaw puzzle we continue to try and see where it is we fit in within our family, our workplace, our religion, our politics, our existence itSelf in this illusion we continue to create each day.
As for Mom … I know in my heart that she and I are One. My missing of the maternal is more about my material longings and misguided notions of my separate sense of self. So as I quietly reconnect to my own EarthMother nature, I can sense the completeness and perfection in this moment as ALONE transmutes into ALL-ONE.
Happy Mother’s Day.
