My mom died almost 12 Mother’s Days ago. Her path through life was not an easy one, and the end was one she could have predicted but was in no way prepared for. But even in her last weeks, she did her life her way.
I am so grateful that mom and I resolved our “mother-daughter” issues years before she died. And we enjoyed many, many good times. I didn’t always agree with her decisions (and she didn’t always agree with mine), but I found a way to let them be her decisions rather than something I needed to fret about.
As I was doing my “morning pages” today, it occurred to me that while I had “forgiven” my mom for anything I thought she did wrong (of course I had), I hadn’t done “the exercise” with her. “The exercise” is something I hit upon during a recent session of “morning pages” where I was able to finally, truly forgive someone who had hurt me badly very early on in my life, and whom I couldn’t help but blame for so many of my later struggles. I wanted to know why he’d never said he was sorry. I was able to close my eyes, connect to a deeper part of myself, and there I met him. He was sobbing, saying how sorry he was that he had hurt me, how he had regretted it all his life, how it was the thing he was most ashamed of, how he wished he could have told me that before but just couldn’t, how he had always loved me, how he had tried to make it up to me. And just like that, I no longer felt the anger that had plagued me almost my entire life. It was gone. I thanked him for saying sorry and told him I forgave him. And I hugged him. When I opened my eyes, my heart was just in a state of expansiveness. The apology and the forgiveness had healed us both.
And I hadn’t thought to do that with my mom. So this morning, I closed my eyes, connected to my deeper self and met my mom. I told her I loved her and forgave her and also asked her forgiveness for the resentment and judgment I had often had for her. And she took me into her arms, and I felt her love and forgiveness, and she felt mine, and in that magical moment, we were one.
When I opened my eyes, I felt light and buoyant. And then I saw a text from one of my brothers, “Happy Mother’s Day.” And I had just given and received the most amazing Mother’s Day gift. Happy Mother’s Day, Mama. I love you so much.
