time since... two years

Mother's day... I read my mother's obituary this day two lightening fast, agonizing current fighting years ago. Last year, lost and still in the thick of it, I fought with my husband and children. I, expecting the audacity of the impossible, them, to "fix" my aching heart.

We gathered for breakfast at the house. All my mother's sisters and sisters-in-law. They took the cooking duties away from my dad. Each one has a little flash of familiarity about them. The way they stand. Or hold their hands, or brush back their hair. They are all beautiful. We filled our bellies, and our hearts with good food and lightness. Smiling.

A visit to the cemetery. Spring flowers and birds and the warmth of the sun on exposed flesh. A connection from heaven. I am happy today.

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

-- David Whyte from Everything is Waiting for You ©2003 Many Rivers Press

Happy Mother's Day. And I blew her a kiss.