Flight Chronicles of the Hummingbird - Day 56 – 6-1-2021 - Healing Recreates Love

I was gifted a blessing by a beautiful un-named soul last week. It gave me the inspiration to put this out on my blog for my mother’s birthday.

I’ve been giving you bits of information, as I go, on the history of our relationship. Here is my gift to her on what would have been her 89^th birthday.

I am walking into my mother’s hospice room. I am in a sweat; my heart is pounding, my breath is fast and shallow, my fists are clenched. I look at her and freeze. I have not seen or spoken to her for 11 years.

I remembered how much anger and fear I held inside throughout my life regarding her. She was the first person that I felt consistently humiliated and abandoned by. I am anxious.

What was I about to do? I don’t know! I kept questioning myself. I had no idea what was about to unfold.

When she saw me come in the room, she glared at me. “Vat are you doink here?” she asks me angrily, in her thick blend of accents.

I am completely terrified because of my memories of her. In my mind’s eye, I could see myself as a child, with her looming over me, shouting at me about something, as usual; at only 5’3”.

One memory that stuck in my head for years, came flooding back of her calling me on the phone when I was four and as an adult at 43, “Why haven’t you called me to tell me you love me and ask how my health is?”

For two years before this meeting with her, I did a lot of forgiveness work and realized something important. It wasn’t my fault what happened to me as a child but as an adult, it was my responsibility to make my life the way I wanted it to be; I want joy in my life. 

I am sitting next to my mother on the edge of her bed; I take in a deep breathe. I make a decision to use a tool I had learned years ago in connecting with another using unconditional love. 

I begin to stare into her eyes, having no idea what could happen. Shaking, I continually tell myself I can love this woman… I can love this woman. I have never known how to love her because she never knew how to love me; but I will try.

“Vat are you doink?” my mother said again. Her Chaplain, who was there to support us both said, “She’s loving you.” 

As I sit there with her, I have a huge awareness. My mother, at 84 years old, never felt love like that in her entire life and she had no clue what to do with it. I am looking at my mother and I can see the little girl who was so traumatized as a child and did the best she knew how as a mother.

I forgive her...again.

I was slowly letting go of the fear and anxiety, as I was beginning to really see her heart and what came to mind was to sing the song I used to sing to my daughter. I have always wanted my mother to have peace and hope this would help.

I began, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear; how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

After singing to her, I lay down next to her and hold her in my arms. I feel my heart open and allow myself to see her for who she really is and how much I do care about her. Nothing else seemed to matter at that moment.

Time to Go

The visit was coming to an end, I sit up and get in a chair. I look at her, into her deep brown eyes that look like mine. I think about how amazing this visit turned out to be, but I was not prepared for what was about to happen. 

I thought about what had happened in both our lives, most of which, we were not together. I was getting ready to leave to catch my plane and a single tear rolled down my right cheek. My mother reached up and wiped the tear away. It felt like time had stopped and I could finally feel her love. As far as I remember she had never done that before.

I touch her hand and face one last time and then hug her. I back away from the bed and get up. As I turn to leave, I think to myself “What now?” I cannot even begin to tell you what it feels like to wrap a lifetime of fear, anxiety, anger, and love into a three-hour window.

I walk to my car, away from the safety I felt by the end of the visit; it was dreamlike. I had not felt safe like that with her, ever; I never felt safe in my life.

After leaving, I feel my heart soften and there seems to be an unfolding happening. Something shifted inside me because of this final visit with my mother.

Inside of that, I began yet another process of forgiving myself. 

For the next two years until 2018, my mother came back to life as well. She spent time with the other patients, helping the nurses, something she had loved to do as a Red Cross volunteer 50 years prior. We talked on the phone every other week or so and she was probably happy again for the first time in a long time; maybe ever.

Earlier in the year, I decided to send her a recording of me with a message of forgiveness and me singing, “You Are My Sunshine.” Her Chaplain played it for her.

And yet again, a few months later, she fell back into her darkness or was it something else? I will never know. She wasn’t talking as much and slowly, it dwindled to nothing. When I called to talk to her on the phone, all I could do was sing to her because I didn’t know what else to do.

At some point, she stopped eating. Her Chaplain played the recording again on December 10. Three days later, on December 13th, my mother left the planet.

That visit helped me to start really seeing the patterns that had been repeating themselves in my family for generations and my life. I decided, no more. 

A couple of years after my visit with my mother, before she died, my son told me a friend asked for advice on how to stay connected with her children through the divorce she was about to go through. My son recognized the unconditional love I had always given to both him and his sister, even throughout the traumatic experiences we went through. He told her that although it took him a long time to recognize this from his childhood, he saw, as an adult, how unconditionally loving I had always been with them. He told his friend that this was the best way to walk through this. “Never stop giving them unconditional love,” he told her. When I heard about this, I was floored. At that moment, I was finally validated that I had done the right thing by them.

At one point, my daughter texted me about my grandmother’s cedar chest I had given her, and she was asking me how to stain it. I was so happy, I laughed to myself because I knew she could have looked it up online yet chose to text me.  I just thought that was such a beautiful moment; I was elated!

From everything I went through with my mother and with my children, I decided this pain, heartache, separation, anxiety and fear ends here. I decided that, through me, I would do whatever it takes to end this generational trauma.  That is what my healing journey is about. My hope is to see my children’s children and all children grow up with a deep and true love in their family, just like the love I have for myself and my children. 

Why Feeling Good Enough About Ourselves is Important

For the past 30 years, I learned that I never felt good enough; most of us don’t. We deal with making ourselves look good in a world of perfectionism while at the same time feeling embarrassed and humiliated and it can create anxiety that most of us don’t know what to do with. This all stems from three generations of trauma.

This all continues to teach me unconditional love for myself and others. My father did say to me when I was a child, “No matter what happens, I will always love you.” Even though we were estranged from each other from the experience that occurred with me and my children, I will always remember and cherish that from him.

This entire scenario connected me to what is important in life and has energized me to help others through the practice of loving those dark parts of myself and healing them. I now know that the core of the work I am doing is a bridge that helps people live in this human world and feel ok about themselves. For some, spiritual work can make people feel worse about themselves. That isn’t how this works; we are all love inside.

 “And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with love like that, it lights up the sky.” Rumi

Happy birthday, MOM