Mothering My Mother

As Mothers’ Day 2008 approaches, I ponder the meaning of Motherhood. Having stopped being a retailer of greeting cards and gifts 6 years ago, I let go of the hustle and bustle of the day’s celebration. While retailing (some 12 years), I was too busy to pay attention to the celebration. My family always knew that I was too distracted by sales to truly celebrate my mother and being a mother. We managed and my family is quite functional without the brouhaha.

But tonight I mothered my mother. And it was and is an extraordinary experience. I fell asleep in the evening and practically passed out. Yet I awoke and had an agitation that I could not understand. Mummy’s caregiver, Cynthia called me at 11:15 p.m. and told me that Mummy was asking for me. I immediately went over and she was awake, as if waiting for me. Just as my child. She drank Lucozade and accepted crackers from my hands and asked me to stay till she fell asleep. I gently caressed her cheek. I stroked her arm. I adjusted her sleeping position to ensure she was comfortable to accept the abyss of comforting sleep. She didn’t want to sleep until I came, which reminded me of my own daughter’s nightly call to come and tuck her in, and my son’s requirement of a kiss at bedtime.

That my Mother accepts that I now mother her is incredible to me. I am her baby. Yet she and I now accept that I will care for her as she cared for me as a babe in arms – hugging her to clean up, making her comfortable, speaking gentle words and sometimes instructing wholesome thoughts, nurturing her where she is, tending to her needs, encouraging her to just be in the moment, to eat up and to drink lots of fluids – just a spoonful or sip more.

I am reminded that everything she gave me as my Mother, I had to practice as a mother to my children and this practice has now come full circle to mothering my Mother. It is beautiful to know and accept our new roles – I feel and know her acceptance and it is empowering to me to know that I got it all from her – my beautiful Mother, and my Mother God. When exhausted from all this mothering, I ask myself how can I go on doing all this – mothering my children and also now my mother. I make the same decisions for her that I do for my children’s well-being and I believe she has trained me well. She is happy when I inform her of my decisions about her well-being and care and she is confident in me. I see this in my children – that Trust, that Mummy knows everything, but in reality it is that Mummy knows God.

That is the difference – my mother has experienced it all and from all her experience, knowing that she has guided me well, she trusts me implicitly with her care. My children came to me knowing “blindly” that somehow they could trust my love and care.

Trust – love – care… these are all of God and give thanks that I can experience all this in my life.

And that trusting love comes from knowing the Truth – that all is God and God is within us and everywhere to guide us to greater knowing of life, love and light. I give thanks tonight for the Religious Science, Rev Elma and Rev John – who I lovingly call The Blessed and The Beloved. I give thanks for their intrinsic support which enables me to mother my mother, allows my mother to be mothered by her baby and still support me in mothering my children.