The Gift of a Mother’s Love

I hope everyone had a good Mother’s day. It is a time to celebrate the gift of a mother’s love whose job is one that shapes the world as William Ross Wallace (1819-1881) portrayed in his poem:

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Is the Hand That Rules the World

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

 Infancy’s the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

 Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

 Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky—
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

However, Mother’s day can be difficult for me because I never felt my mother’s love. I believe she loved me in her own way. She did not show this love to me by supporting me, encouraging me, holding me, hugging me, kissing me or even telling me that she loved me.

Instead she neglected me and ignored me.  She criticized me  and discouraged me which she said she did because she loved me. Because someone needed to tell me what my faults, flaws and shortcomings were otherwise how would I know. This she told me once when I was a child when I asked her why she never complimented me.

I worked hard at telling myself that all this doesn’t bother me, that I stopped letting it bother me years ago. But the void is there. Whenever I hear someone say, “My mother is my best friend.” or “My mother is always there for me” or read poems like Wallace’s,  I shut down so as not to feel that aching emptiness. I can give love and comfort to myself now that I am an adult, and I have learned to do that, but I will never be able to know or understand how it feels to have a mother’s love as a child.

My mother died 19 years ago and with it the hope that she would show me the love I wanted, needed and because I didn’t get it, craved. I will never know if she would have changed. If she would be interested in me, my life, my kids lives. If she would share in my successes. More than likely not but then I will never know.

I only hope that I was able to extend the gift of a mother’s love to my children. I think in many ways I have. I know I loved my children from the moment they came into my life, those I gave birth to and those who came to me through marriage.  Now that they are adults, I continue to let them know I love them and am here for them when they need or want me. I did what I could to atone for mistakes I made. I keep them in my heart and wish them all the joy that life can offer.

To those of you who mother’s showed you the love that nourishes, embraces and comforts, I hope your mother’s day was one filled with joyful remembrances and some time spent with your mother. For those of you whose mother’s love was not available for what ever reason, I hope you were able to nurture your inner child with the universal archetypical mother love that is expressed in the video below.

Finding Encouragement in the Simple Things

I have been waiting for this time in the spring with such anticipation. No, its not the return of the robin, the budding of the leaves, the tulips or daffodils or even the song of the red-wing black bird, which is nostalgic for me although I do get excited when these things first appear. For me, it is the subdivision rummage sales. The first one of the season was the Aberdeen subdivision in Menominee Falls, WI with 20+ homes participating.

The day was cool and cloudy with the threat of rain which never materialized. We parked our gray Honda fit on Aberdeen Dr to start our trek around the subdivision on foot. I hooked up Angie to her leash and we headed off looking for treasures and bargains. We just about finished our sojourn finding a few treasures when I spotted something we specifically were hoping to find.

“Mike, look, the blocks we’re looking for,” I said.

Mike walked over to me and looked down to where I pointed. There sat a plastic tote filled with big wooden old fashioned blocks. Mike haggled them down from $20 to 12. This itself made the day but was not the biggest deal

The big deal of the day was a just an idea I had in mind. We have this glass picnic table with four chairs that we kept on your enclosed porch. This year I thought I would like to bring it outside to encourage us to be in our yard more. There is a hole in the middle of the table for an umbrella which we don’t have. I thought it sure would be nice if we had an umbrella.

As we were walking up this driveway of a large suburban home looking at the assortment of treasures, I spotted this big blue/green umbrella in the middle of the driveway. The woman who was running the rummage sale was standing near by.

“How much is this umbrella?” I asked.

“You can have it for a dollar.” she said.

“A dollar. Wow.” It hardly looked used. “How big is it?” It looked kind of short to fit in my table.

“Oh, it looks like a pole is missing. Let me go get that.”

“If you find the pole. You got a deal.” I said. She did and the deal was sealed.

I brought it home and set up my table right way. It looks so inviting in our backyard with the table and our fire pit.

I am still astonished. I can’t believe I found that umbrella. I know this is pretty trivial but it is speaks to me of “ask and you shall receive” and more importantly, I can ask but then I still need to go out and do the work. I had the thought, “wouldn’t it be nice to have an umbrella” knowing that I would not buy a new one for after all we are on a limited income, which meant finding one at a rummage sale. What were the odds of finding just the right umbrella that fits our table. So, I go to the rummage sales and there it was, waiting for me but I would never have got it without putting my thought into action.

This reminds me of what Ester and Jerry Hicks write about in their books on the Law of Attraction. They say that when I desire something it is already there. I wished for the umbrella. The “broader Non-physical, Source Energy, Inner Being” part of me becomes the vibrational equivalent of what I am asking and is waiting for me to catch up. In other words waiting for me to put my wish into some sort of action, going to the rummage sales. I could have not put forth the effort. I could have said, “Ah, it’s cloudy and cold, it may rain, I’ll just stay home.” In which case, I wouldn’t have found the umbrella.

This seemingly trivial experience to me is an expression of hope. I can get what I want but I need to go out there and do the work. Applying this to my life purpose, which according to my finger prints profile is to master creativity, I realize I can do it. I can live my life purpose if I do the work, which in my case is writing. Writing from my heart with my own creative, individualistic style. Writing and never giving up. Writing with a strong sense of self acceptance. I can do all this and catch up to the “broader Non-physical, Source Energy, Inner Being” who is already living with the flow of life purpose.

By looking at life’s simple mundane experiences and applying deeper meaning one can find motivation, hope and encouragement. I hope that your days bring you just such experiences.
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Good Friends are like stars

Good friends are like stars, you don't always see them but you know they are always there.

Today I don’t know what to write for my blog. If I should go light or serious. I already wrote two posts about spring. Should I write about the sun, the moon the stars? A movie? A book? I am at a loss. I am feeling dried up with nothing left to say.

I sit at my little rummage-sale-find task chair staring at the blank document on my computer screen. Finally, I do a little free writing hoping something will surface. Nothing does. I play a game of Mahjong. (It’s a way I sneak in games without having solitaire on my computer. I know I am flirting with danger but sometimes I just need that distraction.) I get up and wander back to the living room, talk with Mike a bit only to come back to the computer and sit down to stare at the blinking cursor. I must think of something. I can’t let this blog die. I open my email and see “New comment on your post “Foolishness means Aliveness” in my in box.

I sigh and smile. I feel a weight lift. Wow, a comment on my last post. It is from Linda a woman who I met in 2004 at WomenHeart’s weekend Symposium on women and heart disease at the Mayo Clinic. We were both from Wisconsin. We both had heart surgeries. We were around the same age. We connected right off and are still friends.

I have to admit I’m not an easy person to get to know. When I first meet a future friend, we form an intimate bond immediately. We will sit and tell each other our most private thoughts and feelings. Then as time goes on, I sort of back off. Apparently, I do instant closeness well but the long-term is hard for me to sustain. Fear is probably at the root. Fear of being rejected, no doubt. Whatever the reason, there it is. But once a few years pass and the friend is still hanging in there with me despite my strangeness, I am not as difficult. At least I hope not. Anyway, Linda is one of those friends.

A couple of years ago we both moved away from Wisconsin when our husbands retired. Mike and I to the north in Minnesota. Linda and her husband to the south in South Carolina. We haven’t really seen each other since but we do talk on the phone and its as if there isn’t a distance between us.

So, when I see that Linda read my blog and posted a comment I felt that I was being given a gift. A nudge from the universe not to give up. I pick up the phone to call her right away.

“I was just reading your blog and posted something,” she said.

“I know” I said. “That is why I’m calling. Your commenting on my blog came at the right time. I was feeling discouraged.”

“I like to read your blog. You should have been an author. Maybe you can be an author when you grow up.” We laugh. We are both in our sixties and we share the same passion of wanting to do something with our lives.

But seriously her words soothed me. I want to be able to write so others get something out of it and it means so much to me when my friends share with me their feelings about my writing. Unfortunately, I will respond with their kind words by trying to brush them off or change the subject. I don’t do compliments well either. You could say I’m a work in progress, still…

I am glad for my friends and their encouragement. For listening to me when I tell them my fears and doubts. For hanging in there with me when I must seem distant and strange. As Linda was saying to me on the phone, its with the connections of friendships that help us live a long and healthy life.

Thank you to Linda and all my friends. And to whoever is reading this blog may all your friendships be just as rewarding. Please, feel free to share a friendship story.

Foolishness means Aliveness

Risk being foolish

Mike and I and another couple went to the Milwaukee Rep. Getting out of the car I felt an excitement at seeing this show. The Stackner Cabaret has intimate setting with 31 tables for eating and drinking and no orders taken during the show. The point is the show but the food is excellent.

We sat down at our table which was raised up along the side. We had a clear view of the stage and the performance but then everybody did. The lights dimmed. The band played and the show began.

Always…Patsy Cline is based on a true story about Cline’s life as told though the eyes of one fan, Louise Seger. The angle of the story being told from the Louise’s point of view brought an added depth to the singer’s life. Louise’s love for Patsy Cline’s music, her voice and singing was contagious. At one point in the story Louise said that Pasty Cline sang the way she always wanted to. Patsy Cline was her hero, her role model, her muse, her joy, her love, her dream, her wish, her passion.

Louise met Patsy Cline when the singer was to do a show at the Esquire Ballroom in TX. Louise wasted no time getting some friends together and to see her idol perform. Louise’s group was the first to arrive so they would be assured a table. While enjoying her beer, Louise saw a girl looking the place over eventually taking a seat three tables over from her. Louise was bursting with excitement when she realized the girl was Patsy Cline. Unable to sit still any longer Louise got up to go and say Hi to Patsy Cline.

“Louise, don’t be foolish,” one of her friends said.

Louise looked back at her friends and said, “Foolish I am and foolish I will always be.”

I loved that line. That line lit the whole story up for me. I paid attention to the show with renewed excitement.

Negative self talk can run through my head whenever I want to do something that requires stepping out of my comfort zone, doing something I love, something important to me where I will be out there or doing something that would bring me joy and probably get me noticed. I would hear, “Don’t be foolish.” “You’re going to make a fool of yourself.” in my head and stop dead in my tracks.

Wrestling with this negative self talk I realized that doing whatever would make me foolish was actually the thing that would bring me the most joy. One day I said to Mike, “You know making a fool of myself is really being alive.”

At once I made an affirmation. “To Make a Fool of oneself means to truly be Alive.” I put it on business cards to carry around with me. I wanted to remember that every time I am stopped by the words, “Don’t make a fool” that instead I am being shown something that will surely bring me great joy.

That is what happened for Louise. Being foolish and walking up to Patsy Cline was the start of a beautiful friendship for the both of them. Something that would not have happened if Louise was not afraid of being foolish.

I found that I am not the only one who thinks being foolish is a good thing. There is a quote by Theodore Rubin a psychiatrist and author of many books both fiction and nonfiction that is all over the Internet.

I must learn to love the fool in me, the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.

And while at Theodore Isaac Rubin Quotes page on SearchQuotes.com I found another quote by Dr. Rubin that is in a similar vein.

Have you considered that if you don’t make waves, nobody including yourself will know that you are alive?

That is it for me, what I want to remember when I am about to embark on a foolish endeavor, that I am about to step out into aliveness.