"To be human is to love even when it gets to much. I'm not ready to give up."
I stood out on the wrap around deck of the Trinity Pines Lodge stretching out before me was a horizon of real beauty full of ever green trees and mountains touching the clouds wide open is the sky up to space that all I saw was such beauty of this earth!
I breathed in the fresh air of the early morning with my cup of coffee in my hand and my fuzzy sweater on as my mother was all ready for the day ahead and visiting with the ladies inside.
The song "To be human." by Sia kept running through my mind,
For it's so peaceful up in Cascade Idaho.
I am human, I am on a journey every day and being reminded of how I came from this woman, my mother gives me peace of mind and a deeper understanding in all the stories of my past, especially in dealing with her. I have gained more insight from her since her stroke then I could ever of imagined, I am grateful.
Of course I will always wish this had never happened to her and that she remained more of a stranger to me, Because she wouldn't of had all this suffering, she would be more in control of her life still.
She would of kept a ton of information away from me to which I could still be living on in my own happy "bubble." just a bit longer....
It's would of been nice to just stay in place back then, to have only those small social encounters with her.
and yet over these last 6 years I have been given a crystal ball into all things concerning her, therefore I'm grateful.
To be human is to keep learning so I guess it wasn't meant to be that formal between us.
My mother needs me to do anything or everything, she needs my strength when getting up from the wheel chair, she needs my pillows when rolling over in bed, she needs my quick setup for each meal and my constant joking around at shower time.
I am grateful to know how to balance her safely, how to dress her quickly and how to style her hair while delighting in simply being girlie together.....it took this tragic event to be this close for us.
To be human is to kick ass in the face of fear or evil.
To be human is to stand strong even if it gets to much.
To be human is to understand you don't want to ever give up!....to be human is to delight in all things knowing nothing will ever last.....
I was reminded on that busy weekend with my mother as she celebrated her 60th birthday, as she struggled to keep up with her more mobile busy friends in the ladies church retreat I was reminded that I came along in my mother's life way to early, she wasn't ready for motherhood. She wasn't ready for a lot of things she had to face back then.
I was reminded of how now through grace I see her pain and her struggles through all her stories and all her memories she has shared with me some of the most difficult things to hear....I am meant to just be an ear for her, I realize it helps me know the whole story of my own life time.
To be human is to know we aren't alone on this earth.
Through my mother's eyes I came along in such a shocking way that now she still says "No one told me how it all worked I had to learn as I went, I thought I had the flu lasting 3 months, until someone said that I could be pregnant. I didn't know that's how that worked at all...so when Debby was born everything changed, no one asked me how I was anymore they all wanted to know about her." I nodded thoughtfully smiling a moment for my mother sometimes forgets who I am, since she sees me now as a middle aged woman, I'm more as her friend and helper not her first born little baby, so those memories of her past are of different people then of right now.
Sometimes when her information is very hard to hear I think about just how much I love forgiveness, how much I love grace, and most importantly I love knowing more information about the story of life.
To be human is understand others better.
My life was influenced deeply by this woman I can now see her for the truth, I can now understand that she never knew what I knew when I arrived to adulthood, her adulthood was very different......(Well, no wonder we had so much conflict back then. Our battle lines were strong and we came from totally different sides of the story)
I walked around the evergreen trees at the retreat realizing that I will never escape her religion, her stories and her ways....She is my mother whom I will not have on the earth another 60 years so why was I born unto her? Why was I always freaking her out when I was a kid? Why was she threaten by me when I was a teenager and why did she cling to me when I was a young adult? Why did my mother use my baby brothers to guilt me into living at home for so long? Why do I try so hard to make her world better now as she strolls along in her wheel chair? For every shared laugh and every shared meal and every shared car ride I count it all joy, I count it all so vital to who I am in knowing her better.....Yet, it's all such a mixed bag of emotions so in the end I can understand it all much better the older I get. Who she was is why I am.
To be human is to make mistakes, to grow.
Back when I was just a kid I watched the Tv show "Wonder Woman." in those early 80's days, so whenever my mother would freak out over something I would go outside to play as if I was Wonder Woman.
I would twirl around and around until I turned into the super hero of my dreams! A brave woman full of heart like that show I watched so intensely, A beautiful woman fighting crime for she was fearless and she was fighting back with her bullet proof bracelets!
Oh how I loved being Wonder Woman in my imagination all the time through out my childhood.
To be human is to always hold onto hope, that same hope I had as a kid, that now I remember as I spin around through time, spin through my life from the past, the present and the future as I twirl in place saying "Wonder woman!" I stop with my arms up, with my wrists touching each other bracing myself for protection and feeling such new power in my steady focus on fighting back! For this world can come at us fast that sometimes we need to brace ourselves for impact, we need to know who we are and why whenever the shit hits the fan.
To be Human is to be brave and honest.
I use to think that my mother looked exactly like Wonder Woman in her great beauty, in her dark wavy hair and in her confident smile. Before I ever understand anything about her, my mother, I learned to walk, to speak and to just be as she watched over me.
"No more Wonder Woman at the table." My mother set my dinner plate down and I pulled off the hair bands from my wrists as she rolled her eyes explaining "There's only ONE super hero in this world and it's God." I smiled at her with a nod saying right back at her "And I bet he would LOVE to marry her if he could."
