Mother-Less

There are many challenges when it comes to being a Mother...well, at least, for me there are.

In addition to the every-day challenges (maintaining a somewhat organized home, helping everyone to find a way to meet their needs, making nourishing meals and establishing a rich and stimulating environment, finding creative and consensual solutions to the 'roadblocks' we all come up against from time to time, finding time to spend with each family member, including mySELF...you know, the usual stuff), there is the more 'internal' stuff to deal with as well...the stuff that is going on at the heart level...the baggage, the healing that needs to be done, the letting go, the figuring out who I am as a Mother, and how to be that Mother in a culture that, by and large, does not support me on this path.

Of the many challenges I face, however, I'd say the one that is the toughest for me is being a Mother-less Mother.

This is something that weighs on my mind and spirit quite frequently, and moreso as my children, especially my daughter, grow and mature.

There are so many times when I have a knee-jerk reaction to something the kids do, and I want to figure out *why* I react the way that I do. One of the first things I tend to want to do is call my mom and ask her if I did that as a child, how she and my dad handled it, and how, as a child, I reacted to how I was parented. I have this burning desire to process my childhood, to find out what it was like for me to be a child, what it was like for my Mother to mother me, what she felt were the right choices, and what she wishes she could have done differently.

But I can't do any of those things. I can't have that conversation, or ask those questions. Sure, it's easy for someone to say 'Oh, but you *can* talk to her, and she *can* answer you'...

It's just not the same, and more times than not, I don't find that a very comforting thought. Of course I know I can still communicate with my mom. Of course I do things to keep her memory alive. Of course I experience her when I feel the wind brush against my cheek, or feel the Terra Firma beneath my feet, or awake in the morning having dreamt about her through the night.

But I want to hear her voice, I want to hear her stories. I want to *know* things about my childhood or about Motherhood, that only my Mother would know. Things I don't or can't or won't remember. I want to hear her side of things, see things through her eyes...Something that, as a Mother in my own right, I am finally ready to hear. I am willing to hear.

But it's too late. She is not here. Her voice is nothing more than a shadow to me now. A dream.

So much of RU (radical unschooling) involves so much de-schooling and processing and WORK on ourSELVES as parents...and part of that work involves learning how we have been conditioned, how our past experiences play out in our present, and how to heal any wounds left untended and accept what was, and what is, so that we can let go of the baggage, and BE HERE NOW, 'authentically' and 'whole-heartedly' for our families.

But I feel lost...how can I process the things that I don't know...the memories that appear to be sliced into fragments, and seemingly would only make sense if my Mother could help me piece them together?

When I became a Mother, it was the first time that I truly felt my Mother and I had something in common. As a thirty-something Mother, I now realize that we had so much in common, but it was Motherhood that brought me to that realization. Becoming a Mother created a closeness and connection with my Mother that we had never experienced before. And the experience of that bond was so incredibly short-lived...for her Death/Re-birth Journey began soon after I birthed Spider-dove.

This time of year is extremely challenging for me. This is the time when She, body and spirit, began to prepare for The Journey...the time when I started receiving phone calls that her condition was worsening. Then improving. Then worsening. Then improving...

Energetically, my spirit re-members this time. As much as I want to celebrate the Return of the Light and the Coming of Spring in all her magnificence, this time of the year is as much about Death as it is about Re-Birth. While, in my mind, I try to remain focused on the burgeoning of New Life, in my heart, I am mourning the Death of my Mother...and I am so, so tired.

No matter how many years pass, this time of the year tears open those wounds anew, and I bleed sadness and regret and longing and guilt and anger just as freshly as I did the day she died.

And so, I take each day, each moment, one step at a time. I learn to accept that this is where I am, and try to figure out how to be what my family needs, while also being what I need.

As I attempt to piece together the past in order to heal in the present and prepare for the future, I call out to my Mother on the Wind, and feel the warmth of her Love as the rays of the Sun kiss my nose and the glow of the Moon bathes me in her cool light.

I shed my silent tears, and I wonder...