My mother died in February 2018. We were very close, and I am told that I have many of her best qualities. Admittedly, I have some of her less desirable characteristics, too. That’s not too surprising. She filled the roles of mother and father for me, and I was her primary caregiver through several illnesses and battles with cancer.
Every Mother’s Day, I review, update, and repost this essay to remind those of you missing your moms that you are not alone. We are strong, and we are still capable of advancing the dreams of those who came before us. More importantly, there’s still time to live our dreams.
I left home to find my happiness.
Freedom is important to me, which has often upset and confused family members who never left our hometown. At times, I have judged them, too, because they don’t share my sense of adventure or love of the world. My mother did, and I enjoy freedoms not available to her and others before us. In some ways I feel a responsibility to take advantage of the changes in laws, attitudes, transportation, medicine, and computer technology that have opened opportunities for me.
I need not feel guilty for having more.
My life is very different from my grandmother’s. I would have created a great life for myself on the farm, even as property of my grandfather. Fortunately, I don’t have to.
I can enjoy hot showers and indoor plumbing. From a device I hold in my hand, I can Google a building’s namesake and deliver an email to the mayor, asking him to add a historical plate explaining the significance. Or I can invite him to reconsider naming any building for a person and reject the lionization of people in a country where we still fail to treat everyone equally.
I can love all worlds.
Also from that handheld device, I can book a flight to Paris and AirBnB rooms across the globe, the worst of which are probably still more comfortable than the log cabin Grandma Lula grew up in.
In many ways, I might have loved her life, but I don’t have to replicate it to honor it. Likewise, I can love the lives of my sisters, even if they differ from mine. Two of them had children out of wedlock and were single moms for awhile–lifestyle choices likely unheard of when my mom was 19. My other sister left home, had a long marriage, freed herself, and greatly influenced me.
I love all of their lives, where and when they make them happy.
Life gave me new plans.
For much of my young life, I dreamed of having a big house for all the unloved children I would adopt and save from sad lonely lives like mine sometimes was. Yet I was chasing that life for many unhealthy reasons and my relationships didn’t last. I was too blinded by my own pain to see the addictions, homosexuality, and other incompatibilities. I was no better partner than they were.
Work, school, sports, and career were what I was good at, which is why I let them lead me. These were choices my mother and grandmother didn’t have, and I always assumed they would eventually lead me home. They did, just not a home in Louisville. At least for me, home truly is where the heart is.
When I set love free, I became free.
My home, like my office, is wherever I am. That is, in part, because of the love all around me. It has never been absent, even when I couldn’t feel it. I often deflected it. At other times, I tried to hoard it.
It has taken a lot of therapy and personal development that I still work on every day, but this is what works for me. It’s not better or worse than what works for you. It’s just different. Be different, yet be kind, and welcome the unique qualities in others. They don’t change or threaten yours. There’s room for all of us.
Hating me will not change me; it will change you–from the loving, happy person you were created to be. Be love. Be happiness. Be you. These are among the things my mother taught me, and now I live her dream.