Someone asked me yesterday if I had done something special for my mother for Mother's Day. I told him that my mom had passed, and he was embarrassed and apologetic, but I said "don't be! You would not have known!"... For those who have lost their moms, one day late, this lovely column from Dr. Estes:
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by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTS
For those whose good mothers have died
for those who were lucky enough to have had what I call, a beautiful, imperfectly-perfect mother, but one who too early passed from this world, especially hard when she has been the ground note for her sons and daughters.
Some of us did not have a mother we can remember without fear, but even that doesnt keep us from recognizing that special bond between many mothers and their children wherever we see it and blessing that such bounty came to pass for them.
This is just meant to place a hand on the shoulders of those who might miss their mothers, just to take a moment to say, even though your mom is gone or leave-taking in some way, there was and is presence of her still. As long as you are here, she is here.
In some good way, she is here.
Not physically, and I know too, like you, how deeply we humans can be made completely undone by the loss of the physical person to embrace, hear, sit next to, smell, touch, laugh with, argue with, listen to, ask questions of, and love, just love.
Yet, in some way, if one looks and listens, the loved one is near. I tell my children about those they have lost, look for the signs. There will be signs. The souls will let you know. Love is not severed by death. Grow more astute to read the signs.
One of my dear friends just buried her mother, and another dear friends mother is disappearing from Alzheimers there are many other ways to lose ones mother including long-standing estrangement for good reasons, or sometimes foolish reasons, sometimes just a long mismatch or misunderstanding.
Nonetheless, even though you and I dont know one another face-to-face, even though The Moderate Voice is in the main a political and cultural blog, I think this comes under culture and politics culture, because of what in Spanish we call, cultura cura.
Cultura cura means the culture carries cures that help, all the way from a tiny bit, to a great amount if we will dare to bring them, apply them, speak them. I find speaking about inestimable love bonds is also writing about politics, for isnt it a dearth of sustaining mercy and love, and alternately, the application of mercy and love that seem to make some notable difference between going to war, versus walking under the banner, Live and let live?
Thus, many of us who are living mothers and grandmothers (and fathers and grandfathers, and just plain souls who scan the world with prayer every day) we are thinking of you today, the sons and daughters whose mothers have sailed
This then just as a blessing on your head this day
WHEN A GOOD MOTHER SAILS FROM THIS WORLD
When I say, My mother has died,
I mean my most beloved.
Leave me to myself now,
for I am a ship whos
lost her riggings;
suddenly
come unmoored.
My mother has died;
She has earned her rest now,
waiting only, and proudly so,
for her sails
to be taken down.
I, the daughter,
see to the mending of my mothers sails;
I seek her
worn and broken
threads of light,
reweaving her dazzling linen.
And though there be broken threads
not able to be rewoven,
I will gently pull the edges together
and stitch one side to the other
and if not able to be mended,
then I will patch with parts
from my own most earnest life
over the places where my mothers life
was worn through,
. . . or never was.
Over time, the sails of the mothership
will be fitted to the daughtership;
raised up on the mainsail,
and the final touch -
the red ragged flag - hers -
will be flying topmast of my ship.
Ill be let down into the waters then,
I, the daughter, will glide again
but this time, under the best sails
inherited from my mother
and all the mothers of the motherlines
before her.
Ay, Mother, let me tell you
my treasured dearie-dear,
one last thing I have learned
from your spirit passing through me
as sparkling shadow passes
through darkening shadow,
on this open night-sea journey
I am learning to navigate
by the mysteries of the farthest stars -
the ones that the great wake of your passing
has revealed to me
for the very first time.
http://themoderatevoice.com/society/death/19542/when-a-good-mother-sails-from-this-world/#more-195422008, Clarissa Pinkola Ests, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved, is printed here under Creative Commons License: author grants permission for free distribution under conditions that use be non-commercial, text be used in its entirety, and attributed with authors name and copyright.
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