I have lived far longer without my mother than with her – actually almost double the amount of time. In no particular order, here are the areas that I miss having her around:
Getting married, giving birth, raising children, marital issues, divorce, deaths in the family, happy occasions, graduations, any occasion, promotions, cooking , daily conversations, pandemics, and the list goes on. I don’t think you quite get over losing a mother, at least I never really have.
My mom was able to come to my college graduation and died two weeks’ after my brother’s wedding that same year in November, but she had been sick since I was in middle school. I had just started a new job at an advertising agency in Boston when I got the call… I headed straight to the hospital, and she died that night. Unbelievably, she was able to wait until my older brother was able to fly home from Louisiana. To this day, I am not quite sure how she pulled that one off. She was the strongest woman I have ever known – able to negotiate even her death on her own terms.
So, why am I writing all of this today after so many years? I honestly do not know. It was in my head last night when I was sleeping, and I woke up to put in on paper. It is not the happiest email I have ever written, but perhaps needed to come out.
The gift my mother has given to me on Mother’s Day, or at least partially so, is the ability to see different perspectives, the ability to persevere, the ability to be authentic in a world too often the opposite. I always believed that I was an authentic person because I am a very direct communicator and not prone to BS, but I realize that this may not be entirely true. Over the course of the last year since I became a coach, I realize how much I have been carrying to keep me safe, how much I wanted to please others. And slowly this is shedding from me.
Being a mother to Jordan and Hannah is the absolute greatest gift of all. The added bonus of becoming a Coach has also been a tremendous gift to me in so many ways. I think my mother would be proud.
Happy Mother’s Day to all!
