Happy Mother's Day

It is the early hours of Mother's Day and I have been woken by persistent kicks to the bladder by the wondrous little life in my belly. My other child is sleeping deeply and not likely to wake for a while - oh the irony of motherhood! I am awake and celebrating life and just knowing I could crawl back into bed at my leisure feels luxurious. My gift to myself this morning is to sit with the birds in chorus and spend time at my keyboard. It seems that writing is like breathing and its been too long since I took a deep breath and came to this very special place.

Thank you all for your concerned emails after my last post. After rushing to Barry's Bay to see my Grandmother, I am pleased to say that while she has sustained serious heart damage, she has stabilized. Clearly, she is not done with life yet! This was quite a wake up call about just how fragile life is. It seems that my days since have been filled with stories from others about death and endings. The most poignant being one about a woman I know only through another friend, who has just given birth to her full term child, only to discover that the quietness in her body only days before going into labour foreshadowed this child's arrival as still born. My heart breaks for her -even though I know - and must believe - there is purpose and greater meaning to be found in it all.

I have begun to see that grief is as unique as a our fingerprint. Its just a code word for an experience that is subtly different for us all. This observation reminds me to leave lots of space for others in their own experience of loss and letting go and not to temper my own experience in order to make it "reasonable". I am not them and they are not me. Perhaps grieving happens in stages and perhaps what I am calling grief has more to do with opening myself and releasing something that I could never hold on to in the first place - only then can I appreciate it for what it is and not what I want it so desperately to be.

My experience with my Grandma has also been juxtaposed with an oasis of pampering at Ste. Anne's Spa. Basking in the company of friends in a beautiful and luxurious setting I recalled that during our introductory tour, we were told that many of their clients are terminally ill. They come to Ste. Anne's to reflect and re-energize as best as they can. "Why do we wait?!" - pounded through my veins upon hearing this.

At what point do we choose to live fully; to do what has heart and meaning for us? Why do we wait to pamper ourselves? To travel? To say -"I love you" or "You made a difference". This week the news was filled with the account of a man, who, when given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, walked away from the life he had built and invested his money and energy in travel and experiences to create the life he really wanted for his remaining 3 months - only to discover 3 months later that he had been "mis-diagnosed". While the media focused on his financial devastation in light of his newly discovered health and recently depleted funds - I was left wondering about his discoveries about living on his own terms. Just how much did really "living" have to do with his "mis-diagnosis". How easily will this man slip back into the illusion of his former life and how much has his recent experience shown him about "living"? Those are the questions I would like to ask.

My Grandma's best and possibly final gift to me may well be the discovery of how to live. At times it is frightening to step beyond the thin veneer that I have constructed to keep myself both safe and socially palatable and yet, as long as I remain behind its screen, I'm not fully alive. Over the past few years I have emerged considerably but my skin is quite tender and like a turtle, I am prone to ducking back in at times. This recent situation with my Grandma has reminded me to say the things that I need to say. Feel fully - even when its raw and I would rather retreat to the comfort of illusion. Accept the reality that our time in this life is finite.

As much as I would love to cling to the illusion that life continues uninterrupted - I see now that the reality of life as we currently know it ends a little each day. Sometimes we rush toward completion and at other times we meander slowly. Regardless, each moment moves us forward into the end of something and the beginning of something else.

I don't want to reach the end of my days here or with someone I love, only to discover I have not done, said or been everything I could have. No one does. Why do we procrastinate about living? How tightly do our fears hold us hostage? How numb do we become under the burden of beliefs, duties and uninspiring lives - when change is a choice? Oh yes, I get that it is both a simple and yet complicated choice, and nevertheless, it is ours to make and the courage of those choices reflects the life we get in return.

Thanks, Grandma, for your gift to me - the discovery that I can stand in the full strength of my vulnerability and that, indeed, is where the flow of life is deep, fast and abundant. I can't promise that I won't ever get lulled again by the illusion of infinite and unchanging time, become hostage to my own fears or forget that I have the power of choice- if only for a moment - but I will do my best to embrace life as it comes, trusting that when it is finished 'here' I'll have no regrets and be ready for what awaits elsewhere. Happy Mother's Day!