Mother's Day
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It’s true what they say: that, in aging, what you lose in physical strength you make up for in wisdom, gained partly through simply maturing and partly through life experience. Ever since my mom died last June, I’ve had a new perspective on death. I’ve seen how a person’s spirit still infuses the world of those who loved her; how you feel her continued presence, either through memory or reality; and how the physical world itself becomes the carrier of her presence in your life. I remember reading about ancestor worship in grade school and thinking, “That’s silly. . . . how could anyone worship their ancestors?” But now I see that it’s not really worship but remembrance and love, an acknowledgment of their continued existence in our lives. I feel that whenever my family gets together for special occasions and we light a candle for my mom—the flame so beautifully captures the light she was in our lives, the love we will always feel for her, our sense of her still in our lives, and the hope that our spirits endure.
I first felt that infusion of her spirit, that connection with her embodied in the world still, when Jay and I went to the Grand Canyon last fall. The Grand Canyon was so beautiful and powerful, and it was everything she loved: the peace and majesty of nature, the joys of this world that are free and simple but also the best. I thought of her constantly when I was there, remembering the various trips my family took to national parks in the last ten years or so and how my mom breathed in the beauty like air. My sense of my mom was so strong there that, when we drove out of the park at the end of our visit, I actually started crying because I felt like I was saying goodbye to her all over again.
So for Mother’s Day this year, here are some things that my mom loved and that are sort of carriers of her spirit and light for me:
Buckeyes
It’s true what they say: that, in aging, what you lose in physical strength you make up for in wisdom, gained partly through simply maturing and partly through life experience. Ever since my mom died last June, I’ve had a new perspective on death. I’ve seen how a person’s spirit still infuses the world of those who loved her; how you feel her continued presence, either through memory or reality; and how the physical world itself becomes the carrier of her presence in your life. I remember reading about ancestor worship in grade school and thinking, “That’s silly. . . . how could anyone worship their ancestors?” But now I see that it’s not really worship but remembrance and love, an acknowledgment of their continued existence in our lives. I feel that whenever my family gets together for special occasions and we light a candle for my mom—the flame so beautifully captures the light she was in our lives, the love we will always feel for her, our sense of her still in our lives, and the hope that our spirits endure.
I first felt that infusion of her spirit, that connection with her embodied in the world still, when Jay and I went to the Grand Canyon last fall. The Grand Canyon was so beautiful and powerful, and it was everything she loved: the peace and majesty of nature, the joys of this world that are free and simple but also the best. I thought of her constantly when I was there, remembering the various trips my family took to national parks in the last ten years or so and how my mom breathed in the beauty like air. My sense of my mom was so strong there that, when we drove out of the park at the end of our visit, I actually started crying because I felt like I was saying goodbye to her all over again.
So for Mother’s Day this year, here are some things that my mom loved and that are sort of carriers of her spirit and light for me:
Buckeyes
posted by Anonymous at
8:58 AM
4 Comments:
Your beautiful writing about your Mom made me think of this quote, which comes from the end
of the Bridge of San Luis Rey when someone is thinking of the five who died when the bridge collapsed:
"But soon we shall die and all memory of those five
will have left earth, and we ourselves shall be loved
for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been
enough; all those impulses of love return to the love
that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love.
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead
and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only
meaning."
Wow. Susan, that is an incredible quote---thank you. And so very, very true, one feels. --Lynn
Lynn,
You wrote beautifully about Mom. Thanks so much.
Lynn,
It is so touching how you expressed your feelings and love for your mom!
Anannya
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