The hard things... This time last year my Mom was packing up to head on a glorious 20 day cruise through south East Asia.
This year she has been fighting for her life. Scrapping her way through a year full of procedures surgeries, medicines and chemo.
And as I travel back and forth to spend time with her and as her memory moves in and out of time and as I put away our mother daughter hardships ... placing them carefully onto glass shelves precariously high.
High enough that I don't pick at them don't turn them over and think on them.
I see who I am.
I am someone who has decided to be present to be here now.
The now that has her call me her Big Baby Girl and tell me how precious I am to her and how proud of me she is.
The now that brings tears of joy to her eyes each time she sees that I have returned yet again as we talk and laugh.
This now.
And I don't stand on tip toe and grab the fragile package off the glass shelf and unravel the long tale that is us through the years. Years of banishment and sadness and deep despair the kind that requires help to repair.
Instead I listen to her tell tales of me as a beautiful baby and her a young doting Mom hanging on my every gurgle and coo.
And I find myself marveling at the twists and turns of life... the fragility and hard edges. The beauty and the unsightly. The yummy and delicious light and the dark moldy, corners.
And I try not to run as my heart slowly breaks over the rocks of the wasted years as I listen to her call out in pain in the night.
Instead I go to her.
Because I am here... right now.