The Special Mother

Few words that give so much of strength to every special mother who reads it and understands that her life has not changed due to a bad deed but because she had the capability to handle it. To cherish and celebrate each moment of happiness however small it might be for the world. 

“The special mother” by Erma Bombeck

Somehow I visualize God hovering over earth selecting his instruments for propagation with great care and deliberation. As He observes, He instructs His angels to make notes in a giant ledger.

"Armstrong, Beth; son. Patron saint...give her Gerard. He's used to profanity." 

"Forrest, Marjorie; daughter. Patron saint, Cecelia." 

"Rutledge, Carrie; twins. Patron saint, Matthew." 

Finally He passes a name to an angel and smiles, "Give her a handicapped child." 

The angel is curious. "Why this one God? She's so happy." 

"Exactly," smiles God, "Could I give a handicapped child to a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel." 

"But has she patience?" asks the angel. 

"I don't want her to have too much patience or she will drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and resentment wears off, she'll handle it." 

"I watched her today. She has that feeling of self and independence that is so rare and so necessary in a mother. You see, the child I'm going to give her has her own world. She has to make her live in her world and that's not going to be easy." 

"But, Lord, I don't think she even believes in you." God smiles, "No matter, I can fix that. This one is perfect - she has just enough selfishness." The angel gasps - "selfishness? is that a virtue?" 

God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally, she'll never survive. Yes, here is a woman whom I will bless with a child less than perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is to be envied. She will never take for granted a 'spoken word'". She will never consider a "step" ordinary. When her child says 'Momma' for the first time, she will be present at a miracle, and will know it!" 

"I will permit her to see clearly the things I see...ignorance, cruelty, prejudice....and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of every day of her life, because she is doing My work as surely as if she is here by My side". 

"And what about her Patron saint?" asks the angel, his pen poised in mid-air. 

God smiles, "A mirror will suffice."

Let go- The past might be longer than the future

I have a friend who is undergoing a tough phase of her life due to multiple medical conditions that has curtailed her mobility. Its sad to see such a lovely and intelligent girl going through such difficult times but at the same time it is so encouraging to see that she has the ability to make full use of this time by collecting knowledge from everywhere which she might not have been able to do had she been doing a 9 to 5 job and running around in the ‘maya’ of life. It would not be wrong to say that she has turned this phase into a blessing from God. 

Although I wish to speak with her often but am able to do it occasionally thanks to the ‘maya’ around me. She has wonderful stories and anecdotes that she is able to remember at the right moment and share with friends like me to understand life as it is happening. In our last conversation we talked about various topics and how our brain tunes itself to be accepted socially. And at times conscious efforts have to be made to get out of this. She shared the story of the two monks who were asked by their guru/ master to not touch any woman ever in their lives. Both of them had promised their guru that they would never touch any woman ever in their lives. They lived a very pious life following each and every teaching of their guru. They became famous and started going to far off places for sermons. On one such occasion they had to cross a shallow stream on foot as there were no boats or any bridge. As they were about to start, a woman asked them for help to cross the river. Due to past experiences in her life, she was scared of crossing a waterbody but was in urgent need to do so now. She could not think of walking through the steam.  They became perplexed as both the monks had promised not to touch any woman. But then the first monk picked her up and started to cross the river. The second monk got confused and angry seeing this but followed both of them as he had to be there for the sermon. On reaching the other side of the stream, the women parted ways after thanking the monk. Both the monks continued on their journey but the second monk was not pleased with the first monk for having touched the woman. He stopped himself from showing his anger towards the first monk. They had a very good sermon session and then continued to move to a different village. Unable to digest the incident the second monk started distancing himself from the first monk as he believed that the first monk had broken his promise.

As they were on the journey together for months, the second monk gathered some strength and asked the first monk as to why he helped the woman and broke the promise they had made with the guru? Did he not remember the promise? To this the first monk gave a surprised look and smiled. He answered ‘ I helped the woman in need and dropped her at the banks many days ago but you are still carrying her on your head’. The first monk did break the promise technically but the second monk kept the promise but forgot all the other teachings that the guru might have given him.  He kept the woman on his head all this while and also the negative emotions against the first monk. He unnecessarily had so much of burden on his head. But don’t we tend to behave like the second monk and keep unnecessary things on our head many times knowingly or unknowingly.

I know it is difficult to let go of many things but maturity is when you realise that keeping that thing in your head is not going to change anything and learning to let it go. Let it go to attain the freedom, let it go to enjoy the present and let it go to be ready to receive better things in future. We have to keep our vessels empty to receive as full vessels cannot keep more. Take lesson from incidents and empty the vessel to be ready to have more experiences and lessons. Our past can be longer than our future as we don’t know how much we will live. So why carry the past to burden the future. 

‘let go’ is the new mantra.

*Maya literally means ‘illusion’ or ‘magic’