The Mother Load
(Featured photo is of my birth mother, Jodie Williams.)
Friends,
It's Mother's Day week.
For many, it's a celebration; for others, it may be filled with grief, regret, and longing. Like Birthdays and Christmas, Mother's Day can be challenging for some.
If you are one of those people, feel free to scroll down to the Weekly Schedule section of this email, and you can tune in again to the farm news and yoga muse next week.
Or, perhaps, I can offer you a different perspective that worked for me.
If that is the case, please read on.
In 2019, Mother's Day surprised me with an unexpected difficulty level.
In late February of that year, I had found a first cousin through the genetic website "23 and me." Background: I was given up for adoption when I was 5 days old and knew nothing of my heritage, roots, or relatives. Before consumer DNA technology, my previous searches--and there were many--proved fruitless. I had listed with local adoption registries decades ago but to no avail. However, the genetic testing I'd performed several years ago finally had paid off.
I received a contact through the "23 and me" website from one Alex, who suggested we might be first cousins. He was right. I provided him my contact information and waited. I think I held my breath for a week, waiting for his reply. Fantasizing about our mother/daughter reunion that was sure to happen imminently.
His email arrived. I opened it and read how surprised he and the family were to find out about me. I could not have been more excited. Then I read the lines, "I imagine the person you most want to hear about is your mother, Jodie Williams. I am sorry to say that she passed away 10 months ago from cancer."
All I remember is the wail that I let out and that viscerally it felt like being taken from the womb, again.
My relationship with my (adopted) mother was demanding for much of my adult life. We didn't often speak the way that many mothers and daughters do. In fact, I waited a couple of weeks before telling her about finding my birth mother and her family. Not to shield her in any way, but because I didn't know how she would react, I felt the need to protect myself in such a vulnerable and devastating time.
When I did tell her, she was truly remarkable. She was, on the one hand, devastated for me. But, on the other, she was so happy that all of my birth mother's siblings had welcomed me in with open arms and that I had a whole new (albeit old) family.
It was our last conversation and her final gift to me.
She died suddenly, a couple of weeks later.
So yes, two mothers were gone to me within 30 days, one month before Mother's Day.
Mother's Day that year was extremely poignant for me. I was deeply grieving, thinking about how I no longer had a mother. The matriarchal torch had been passed. I WAS A MOTHER, and MOTHERING is something I am called to do in this life. It instead became a call to action. I took back the holiday literally and metaphorically.
IT WAS TIME TO MOTHER ME.
Time to rewrite the narrative and give myself what I didn't get from both of these women because of their own limitations, circumstances, and conditioning. No assignment of blame.
Just celebration from here on out.
So this Sunday, I will celebrate "me"--a mom of three amazing kids. I also express gratitude for all the mother figures still in my life. Thank goodness there are several. And I am grateful for my many friends and colleagues who demonstrate their maternity with strength, grace, and enduring love.
So, in advance of Mother's Day, I want to celebrate every single mother out there. I salute those who have MOTHERED, BIRTHED, or RAISED someone up. And, I honor those who demonstrate their maternity in other ways--traditional or not. Parenting is selfless service, and the reward is knowing you did it without seeking a reward.
Here's to YOU.
With so much love,
Kari