Living our Roles in This Life

Our relationships, Ourselves

My mom is having a pacemaker placed this morning.

I am sitting with her, here in her hospital room where she has been for the past ten days. The light shines through the window onto her hands. I look at them, study them. These hands I’ve known all my life. There is something holy about them. Not just hers, but everyone’s. These conveyors of creation, these tools to manifest something from inside of us to something in the material world. And most importantly, to me, the passageway of care and nourishment from one to another, the conveyors of relationship, the roles we play.

These roles we play in life - mother, son, daughter, wife, friend - they are all in relation to another. We cannot be daughters without mothers, a friend without someone to reflect back to us, a partner to no one. When one half of the relationship is being wheeled out of the room, albeit for a routine procedure, senses are heightened. Our place in the relationship is in flux. Will I always be a daughter if my mother is no longer here in this physical form? Will I still hold the energy of all of the spaces we shared together?

Of course, in reality, we face this continuously. There are no guarantees of anyone’s continued presence and yet we live with the expectation we will see them again. Of course we do. It is untenable to hold the energy that each time a person leaves our presence, it may be the last time we are with them. This is no way to live. And yet, there is another side to this coin of awareness - the heightened sense of appreciation of this person across from us. The light in my daughters’ eyes when they smile; the smile that lurks behind the straight expression on my husband’s face when he is trying to be serious but cannot; my mother’s hands. All of these everyday and sacred gifts that are continuously given.

I do believe there is part of us, our soul, our spirit - that remains unchanged through this life. I picture a glimmer inside of my body, one that always glows, that remains unchanged and constant, that guides us throughout the phases of life. And yet, there are these roles we play that give our life movement and meaning. They shift and bend and morph throughout our daily lives, even moment to moment, and what a gift that is. Our mothering self is not the same as our partner self. My workspace self is not the same as my sister self. We shift based on our surroundings, who we are conversing with, what is happening in the moment. I don’t speak to my brother like he is one of my employees. I don’t tell my accountant to go upstairs and change his clothes into something more appropriate . And yet, there is a thread that connects. There is an innate part of us that is always constant no matter who we are interacting with, be it our child or the clerk at the grocery store.

I watched my mother take care and feed us, her family, and take care and feed the landscape and garden around her home. I felt her love for us and her love for the customers that would sit at the counter of the restaurant my parents owned while I was growing up. I watched her hold close friendships with people that in most instances are surface relationships - she knew when it was our mailman’s wife’s birthday and would leave a card for her in the mailbox for him to give to her. She baked for the butcher at Kroger when his wife passed.

These are the gifts our roles and relationships give. Through watching my mother, I witnessed how to bring others into my life in love. Through watching my daughters, I learned that a person’s spirit, the truth of who they are, is innately born along with them. Through watching my dear friends, I have learned how to hold others and how when we do, it feeds us in return. All of these different threads weave through us and become part of who we are. My roles are not just who I am when I am with someone - they are now part of me and inform my place in this world and how I interact within it.

As I watch my mother go into surgery, I hold her in the same energy that she has held me my whole life. I hold her in the energy that she holds the mailman and the butcher. I put my hand on her beautiful hands. She smiles up at me and tells me this is no big deal and she’ll see me in an hour. I laugh. And I realize that the role of being her daughter will be one I play until the day I die. All the days I care for my garden, while I care for my children, while I love my mailman and my butcher, while I make the nurse laugh as she wheels me down the hallway, I will be her daughter. As it turns out, it’s not a role at all. It has become a part of that glimmer that is inside me, that will continue on with me, past this physical presence. I embrace all of it, I endure all of it, I celebrate all of the roles I play in this life.

I walk out into the day, the sun shining on me, and smile and say hello to the man walking in. I live the love I have been shown. I give freely what was so freely given to me.

Sending you love today,

Seja