The mOther Me
by: Brie Naughton
I remember the day you were born like it was yesterday.
Yesterday, and a lifetime ago, all in the very same breath.
I became Other the moment you breathed without my help.
Another, an-Other, me was born too that day.
The mOther me.
Every now and then, with the slight of my head,
Or when you brush past me and I catch your blurred outline,
I am gifted a glimpse of your otherness.
The You that you are becoming.
I find your father in your smile,
And hear my words in your mouth.
We are there, he and I, and we will shape you to an extent.
But you are Other from us both as well.
And I feel quite fortunate that I get to spend a lifetime
Getting to know all the yous that You will become.
"We have been entrusted with an unbelievable gift— a front row seat to the unfolding of a soul, and an invitation from the creator of love itself to participate in it.
Motherhood is the ever evolving, heart expanding, journey of a lifetime. What an honor to hold a seat in a distinctly created human's heart, and to have a voice that may take up residence in a lineage of generations beyond us."
(from an email today from Axis Ministries)
And this is a classic poem by Billy Collins that Tracey shared with me today- so perfect for Mother's Day:
The Lanyard, by Billy Collins | PBS LearningMedia
off the blue walls of this room
bouncing from typewriter to piano
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
I found myself in the 'L' section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word, Lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one more suddenly into the past.
A past where I sat at a workbench
at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard.
A gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard.
Or wear one, if that's what you did with them.
But that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand
again and again until I had made a boxy, red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips,
set cold facecloths on my forehead
then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim and I in turn presented her with a lanyard.
'Here are thousands of meals' she said,
'and here is clothing and a good education.'
'And here is your lanyard,' I replied,
'which I made with a little help from a counselor.'
'Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth and two clear eyes to read the world.' she whispered.
'And here,' I said, 'is the lanyard I made at camp.'
'And here,' I wish to say to her now,
'is a smaller gift. Not the archaic truth,
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took the two-toned lanyard from my hands,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough to make us even.'
