Love Lives On

Today is my mother's birthday - January 11. She would've been 59 years old today. That's crazy! For the first few years after she passed away I made her a birthday cake on this day that said "Happy First Birthday in Heaven, Mom," and then "Happy Second Birthday in Heaven, Mom," and so on. I tried to organize a family dinner every year, or at least get everyone together, but even that dwindled and didn't seem to be as important to other people as it still was to me. I was trying to hold on to my mom however I could and I don't think I was wrong. I did what I needed to do for me, I felt what I needed to feel, and I allowed myself to be me and to grieve accordingly. I turned a corner in my grief this past year though, a major one, and I would like to take a moment to share something I have only recently realized with you. When I woke up today I wasn't sad or lethargic like I have been in past years. The day didn't change, but my perspective and attitude on it did. I woke up so happy today, excited that it was my mother's birthday, and a beautiful one at that! I looked out the windows of my writing room at the sunny bright blue sky, her favorite kind, and I couldn't wait to get up and go to yoga. Today marked the tenth day of my "30-Day Challenge," which means I do an hour or hour-and-a-half of hot yoga every day for the entire month of January, and the moment I got into the hot, sunny room, my thoughts were centered on my mother. I decided to dedicate my practice today to her. I pushed myself to stay focused and concentrated in each pose, and to push past my "limits" - for her. I felt great when I left, headed home to get ready for work, and drove to work. I felt happy to be alive, happy to have such a beautiful day to celebrate my mother's birth, and happy to know that whether or not my mom is still here with us, and no matter how many years go by, I will always have this very special day to celebrate her. This is not a day to be sad or to cry like I used to. Not at all. It isn't a day to miss her either, it really isn't. It is a day to celebrate her life, a day to celebrate the birth of someone more amazing, inspiring, and loving than anyone else I have ever met. Today, I woke up so happy to celebrate a life that has not ended but only changed in form, and a love that has not, and will not, ever die. My sister's Facebook status this morning was about my mother, as I also planned mine to be, and it touched me as usual. I noticed, however, that she expressed gratitude to my mother for teaching her what unconditional love WAS. I couldn't help but respond, "Gratitude for showing you what unconditional love IS, not WAS. It hasn't stopped." Her love is with us always. True love can never die. Rather, it is fully alive in each of her three daughters and in their born and yet-to-be-born children, just as it will be in their's and their's after, and in the life of every other life she ever touched and will continue to touch though us. Her love is still so alive, probably more now than ever. It is fully expressed in my sisters as they rock their precious babies to sleep, read them stories before bed just like our mom did for us, sing them the same songs, discipline them in the same way our mother did us, play with them just as our mother played with us, and spend every precious moment fully engaged with them, just as our mother was with us. And even though I don't have children yet, my mother's love pours out of me every day and into the lives of everyone around me, though my actions, words, and writing. My mom was a rockstar mother on this Earth and now she is in Heaven too, that's how I see it. Like anything else in life, death is simply how we choose to see it. I read a book shortly after my mom died that held one very profound quote that will stay with me forever. "Death ends a life, not a relationship." Regular every-day relationships can be challenging enough, long-distance ones are even harder, and really long-distance ones (like Earth to Heaven) are the hardest - but they aren't impossible. Every relationship takes work, so why would one like this be any different? We want things to be easy for us but they usually aren't, at least not the things that matter most. For the first few years after my mom died I just wanted to feel her, hear her, or at the very least dream about her, the way so many people assured me I would throughout the rest of my life. "Be patient, sweetie," my counselor told me just weeks after my mom died. "She'll come to you." I remember taking an old play phone we had and writing the word "Heaven" on speed-dial. The number was #000-0000. I tried talking to her that way, and as crazy as I felt or as crazy as it might seem, I think I had the right idea more than I realized at the time. Rather than telling myself what most people do when someone they love dies, "I guess I didn't need her after all if I'm somehow still here and breathing without her," giving themselves a reason to close up and harden their hearts, I acknowledge that I still need my mom. I always will. And because of that, I NEED to still talk to her, spend time with her, and celebrate her life - not just on her birthday or major holidays. I still need that relationship, for me, and if I do then I need to put in the time that any relationship requires. As Helen Keller once said, "What you have once enjoyed you can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." My mother is not dead, not at all. She is very much alive in all three of her daughters, and she will continue to live on not just in us, but through us. Her love will be handed down from generation to generation. It can never be destroyed. And when I miss her, all I have to do is "be" with her, talk to her, spend an afternoon in the park with her, write to her, or talk to someone about her. I don't need to be sad to feel close to her, I really don't. Will I be sad sometimes? Sure. But ironically enough, it is the times when I am happy that I feel so much closer to her. Is it hard not having her physically here? Of course it is. But as much as I learned from her while she was alive, I have learned just as much (if not more) after she died. She continues to inspire and motivate me every day, and I am well aware that whenever I need her, she is always there. She is there in the voice of someone telling me how special I am, in a best friend who reassures me that my book will get written no matter how hard I try not to write it, in my father when he tells me how proud he is of me, in my niece when she looks at me with my mother's bright blue eyes and says "I love you so much," in the best-selling author I met on a retreat last year who fed my soul with more inspiration and direction than I could've ever hoped for, in the mentor from college who helped me financially get to that retreat, in the guy who reminds me how amazing I am every day, and in all those people whose paths I have crossed that have touched me, helped me, healed me, and loved me. I am so grateful to have the mother that I DO, a mother whose love IS the reason that I am who I am today, a mother whose life on Earth taught me what unconditional love is all about, and whose life in Heaven continues to teach me how to place my faith and trust in all the things I cannot see, but all the things that are there just the same. Everything in this world is exactly as we choose to see it. If you want to see your loved ones as gone forever, then go ahead. But why would you? To me, that's easier. It's harder to believe in something you cannot see, harder to be grateful when it's so easy to be bitter, and harder to continue loving someone you no longer have next to you. The choice is yours and so is how you choose to look at death. But remember, "What the caterpillar perceives as the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning." <3 Happy, HAPPY birthday, Mom! I realize that this celebration no longer matters where you are, but it still matters so much to me because on this day a person was born that gave me the greatest gift anyone ever could - my life. You could've left it at that, but you didn't. Far from it. You showed up all day, every day, with nothing but love. You built me into the person that I am and you are such a huge part of the person I am still becoming. I could never, EVER, express enough gratitude to you. Just know that I still love you with all my heart and I always will. Thank you for everything you taught me, everything you still teach me, and all the ways you are there for me every day - even when I don't realize it. Happy Birthday! :) <3