61?! I spent yesterday crying on and off about how little I had accomplished in these six-plus decades. However, in the middle of the night, I began to receive birthday greetings from friends across the globe, and I decided to stop beating myself up with my own expectations and sense of failure. Good thing because what a waste of an extra hour as we set the clocks back! I’d like to attribute that extra hour on MY DAY as divine intervention and a dire reminder.
The greatest gift ever given to me has been time. My mom was the ultimate purveyor, especially to her family. So, it was bittersweet that as she neared death, she shared with me something that weighed on her –neither a resentment nor a regret-but rather a missed opportunity. As we discussed every little and big meaningful moment in her life, she admitted that she wished she had been kinder to herself. She wished she had taken time to love herself.
“Don’t always put yourself last,” she warned. “If you always show others that they come first and that what they need or want matters more, then in the end, you will be put last and come last. You will take a back seat in your own life.” I remember how my heart sank and how I hoped that I had made my mother feel important and loved. I always saw my mom as the driver and the conductor in her (our) family until that moment. I thought then and still ruminate to this day about how I treated my mother, my best friend, and my confidante. And now, more than a decade after her passing, I realize what she was trying to tell me: Don’t seek validation from others. It was not until she stared death in the face that she realized she wanted to live –not for everyone else for she had ‘willingly’ put herself last – but for herself. She had waited to show others that she was important and that she valued herself first. And alas, how she chose to experience her death– the where, the how long, and in whose presence and absence- that was her way of saying, “This last chapter of life is about me. I come first now.”
So, as my birthday comes to a close, I’m gifting myself time and love. After all, isn’t that all we ever have? One is running out, and one is finally growing.
This is the time. This is 60. Sylvia has been celebrating, not just this milestone, but all of the “stones” that she has gathered en route to this point. She has collected, built, torn down, resurrected, rebuilt, resurfaced, and has only one thing left to do: love every bit of herself.
She has not made a million dollars of her own, but she has learned that all the money in the world will not bring her happiness.
She has not published her first book or her second –yet– but she has written them. Will this be the year she shares? She does not know, but she does know that the chapters she has written are originals and all her own. The words and thoughts she has penned on paper and those that remain indelibly fixed in her memory are HERS.
She has not lived according to her own rules, wants, or desires, but she has valued all of the time and energy she has put into making others happy and their dreams come true. Now, she has time and will try to give herself the same respect, attention, and love she has given others.
She has not been kind to herself; she accepted so much less from others and from herself that she came to believe that she could be fulfilled and happy enough with leftovers and crumbs. Perhaps she has not recognized her worth. She has become more aware that the love and value that others have or don’t have for her don’t mean a damn thing. In the end, she has to live with herself, for herself, and move forward believing in herself.
She has not reached her expiration date. She has only just begun.
All that she has not accomplished and not achieved are of little importance. She has survived. Right now, she has more to do, more love to give, more laughter to share, and more to learn. Right now, at this very moment, she has compassion and love and belief – for herself and in herself. This is 60. This is where she begins. She’ll share who she is without fear of judgment because this is what she has and who she is becoming.
I don’t know what time she was born. I guess I could dig out her birth certificate and find out easily enough. To me, my mother was born the day I came into the world. Obviously, she had a life “B.K.”(before K.Morgan), but I didn’t know her then. All I know of that woman who became my mother, both the little girl who wore braids and gingham and the young, blond-haired teen who played the drums before it was cool for a girl to play a full kit, has been conveyed to me through others’ recollections; her own accounts as she would share an anecdote from her past with the slightly or even poorly veiled purpose of teaching a lesson (Mom was not subtle in getting her points across especially as she neared death); and the photos that I have and covet, still kept in the rubbermaid container that she bequeathed to me before her passing and after my childhood home was cleaned out and sold more than a decade ago. And what connects all of the snapshots, real and those that I have taken in my mind’s eye which remain guarded like priceless treasure, are her eyes. It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul; thus, it follows and must be that my mother, B.K. and always, was and remains one of the most beautiful, trusting, and trusted souls God could have offered this world.
Most of us, not all – and I say that without one iota of judgment – love our mothers and have been loved by our mothers. I have been accused of worshipping mine. In fact, my mother often reminded me, especially as she closed in on fate, that she was indeed human, flawed like the rest of us, so she too should be allowed to make mistakes. She would often say that the one bad rap that mothers had to endure was that they were held to a higher standard than everyone else on the planet! Now that I’m a mother, I admittedly understand this so much better. I digress though.
I did worship my mother, something she never demanded or expected, but it happened nonetheless. How did it happen? Ah, that’s the question. The trusting and trusted eyes! My mother had xray vision, vision that led her to know exactly what another human needed. To many and certainly to her family, this special sense (some call it a sixth sense while others deem it intuition) was who she was and how she lived her life at the very core. And while she may have regretted not doing all of the things she had hoped to do before she died, I do believe she lived a purposeful life and her legacy is an honorable one. Her legacy? Her gift? She left it to everyone who had the honor and pleasure of looking into her eyes. My mother made those who crossed her path feel important, no matter their lot in life. She gave others hope. She found and saw something redeeming in everyone. She wasn’t oblivious to the harshness or evils of the world. She was far from naïve. She was perhaps not even optimistic. Mom was hopeful though; and I do believe there is a big difference between optimism and hope. I think, actually I know, that her trusting and trusted eyes became reflective of that difference.
I’m babbling a bit because as we all know the totality of a life cannot be put adequately into words. Indeed, my mother’s life cannot. Her legacy can though. Hope. She believed in me. She believed in my son, the only grandchild she actually witnessed enter the world. (That connection proved stronger for them than I could have every imagined.) And if you had the good fortune of meeting her, befriending her, working for or with her, she believed in you. That belief, the depth of it in those trusting and trusted eyes, keeps me hopeful to this day and through each day. I don’t believe that life is perfect and I’m far from thinking everything will turn out well in the end. However, I am hopeful.
On her birthday, I am going to trust her and her legacy. I’ll celebrate her life buying her favorite purple blooms, reminiscing about how she and my father captivated wedding crowds with their dance moves, and thinking of my son’s smile, the one he wears when he recounts either a memory he made with his champion, Nana. Her legacy of love and hope endures.
Thanks, Mom. And finally you will be happy to hear that I’ve come to realize that you never wanted to be worshipped; you wanted to be loved. You were. You are. You always will be.
Hey, you! Yes, you! Call your mother today. And when and if you have the chance to see her in person, squeeze her tightly—from me and my mom with love.
Photo credit: unknown- so grateful though
#alwaysherchild
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