Are You Grieving a Mother, You Wished You Had?
This Mother’s Day hits a little different since I have begun the journey inward. As divine timing always does, I find it revealing just what I need to continue my path of self discovery and healing. For the entire span of my adult life, I have chose to live as if I emerged from thin air.
Depending on your belief structure you can look at life in one of two ways: The religious aspect tells me I am here because God willed it - crafted me with divine hands, placed into this world with purpose- my existence a mere thread in the unknowable design! But the spiritual view whispers something different - that I chose this body, this family and these lessons. That my soul, in it’s infinite wisdom, stepped forward, seeking growth through the very struggles I would come to know.
Have you ever truly questioned the perception of the world around you? I mean truly.
As a teen I do remember speaking the words: “I signed up for this.” But did I fully comprehend the depths of those words? Where did they come from? Was I truly speaking them? Or were those soft whispers from within to remember why I am here? I; definitely, did not grow up in a philosophical home, let alone spiritual. Perhaps those words were distant memories surfacing… little checkpoints to ground me and cause me to pause.
As I walked in the rain shower today, I was reminded of paths I once meandered down, in my pasture growing up, I loved the feeling those paths brought me. The enchantment of the breeze dancing it’s way through the canopy of the tree tops. How protected I felt from the outside world, the safety in fully immersing myself in the land of make-believe. The edges of reality I was softening and escaping from in my home.
Did my adopted mother ever truly want children? Or was it simply the way of things- a rite of passage, an expectation stitched into the fabric of her subconscious? I remember asking her once, though the answer was already whispering from the depths of my heart. “All my friends were having them.” she said, a truth spoken with the weight of conformity.
And so, I wonder- was this why I chose a body? Not for the promise of love and warmth of connection, but for the raw lessons buried in the absence of? Did my soul, in its vast knowing, see the aching void that would eventually lead me to my purpose? Perhaps my soul, in it’s boundless wisdom, saw the dots my path would connect and whispered,” Here lies the path.” A soul that purposely chose to be a truth seeker, descending with purpose, choosing to enter by choice and not chance.
I choose to live like the latter, now. Although the path hasn’t been an easy one, I have come to terms over the last handful of months, that resistance is what was causing my suffering. I grieve the mother I wished I had. The idea, I created, of her - perhaps in my many escapes into make-believe. Those expectations and perceptions were whole heartedly mine. I crafted and weaved them into my existence. Therefore, the perception of my world truly created my own suffering. She was never capable of being who I needed her to be and that is where the reality of the words I spoke so many years ago: I signed up for this, echo into the depths of my soul. I created this.
I understand pain. I do not condone the actions, but as a human being walking the path of understanding and enlightenment, I see her wounds. Wounds that, in her ignorance, became the source of my own. Yet I choose to forgive the mother who lacked the capacity to be one. To what extent do we conform to the societal expectations around us? Her life became a mirror - an example of how the conditioning around marriage didn’t just influence her decisions; it imprisoned her. Unknowingly, she revealed how the institution of marriage can become a cage - an obligation rather than a choice. Where vows are chains instead of bonds.
I forgive you.
“All wrong doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?” -Dhammapada
*Authors note: The Dhammapada, which translates into “Path of Dharma” or “Path of Truth”, is part of the Pali Canon, and one of the most well known and revered texts in the Buddhist scripture. Within this section one will find teachings on ethical living, mindfulness, wisdom and the nature of suffering.
