I am Grateful…

My mother never really talked to me. Not at least until the very end of her life. She didn’t really talk then either, in the sense of explaining herself…rather she made quiet, simple, statements of such magnitude, they would quite literally rock my world.

Don’t misunderstand we spent hours and hours “talking” and what that means, as I look back on it, is…I wove stories about everything and anything…and she sat quietly and listened.

She was a woman of such astonishing contradictions. She could terrify me with her rages, as I was the place her rage expressed itself. And yet, she was to shy and quiet to ask for a bottle of ketchup in a restaurant. From the moment I could speak, I became her voice in the world.

I asked her once when I was working thru the stages of healing required by her rages, and the sexual abuse I experienced as a small child at the hands of a pedophile uncle, if I had her permission to tell my story to the world…as so much of my story was shaped by being born her child.

For some reason she agreed. Don’t know why.

As time passes and I have healed even the need for the telling of stories, I have found that I would rather tell her story than mine. But I can’t seem to come to terms with how to tell her story, mostly I suppose, because there is so little first hand accounting.

She said perhaps seven, maybe eight things, to me that came from the center of her being. Like a child in a fairy story, I picked them up and carried them in my small basket, thru the dark forest, looking for the home that I sensed we belonged to.

I carry them still.

I feel an obligation to these small, simple, and earth-shattering phrases she uttered when no one else was near, no one else to record them save my own ears. I feel such a huge obligation because they are the tumblers in the lock that eventually set me free. One by one, they lifted me free of the constraints of our agreement, set in place while I was still In Utero.

I do not know the workings of the Universe, I am not mature enough, wise enough, or pure enough, to be privy to the Voice of God, the Way of It, or to understand the Mystery. But nestled amongst all I do not know, which believe me is legion; I know one thing for certain.

I chose my mother.

I chose that relationship, and with it the terror that motivated much of my childhood, and the freedom that has characterized my adulthood. I chose her, her history, the brokenness that was her legacy. I chose the struggle we went thru, the fear of the early going, the pain of the birth of the truth, and the salvation of the end.

I gave her my commitment to see it through to the end, and she gave me a voice.

I cannot begin to express the gratitude I feel, for not having lingered over long, in the miasma that is current day psychological understanding. Our priests of psychological counseling lead us into a position of blame toward our parents, a finger pointing mess that calls out their weaknesses, while casting us as the wronged and damaged victims. It simply isn’t so.

No matter what a parent has done, no matter how heinous it may seem, or how beyond the pale, or how below the ideal…we, those of us born to them, chose their specific set of behaviors, attitudes, and appetites.

How could it be otherwise?

I submit to you that if you are still locked in the halfway point of retribution and blame, then the lack of vision is yours…not theirs. The harm you feel, the burden you carry, the victim energy that consumes your life and blocks your path…is your doing, and no others.

I have no doubt that should you be reading this, and hear me so clearly calling out the desire to remain a child that characterizes the unhealed individual that has been haunted by a terrifying past, that I will make you angry with my assertion that you bear the responsibility and accountability of your adulthood. Your anger, should it be knotting your stomach, and balling your fists, is the very proof that harkens to my assertion. Your parent and mine, were the crucible upon whom we hoped to break ourselves open.

In that vast place we were prior to our birth, in that tender mentoring that must surely have been provided us, for the next leg of our journey…our Soul knew, precisely which unique set of circumstances would be needed to supply the lift, necessary to reach escape velocity.

Had your Mother, Father, family member, school teacher, neighbor, preacher, priest, boyfriends, girlfriends, et al., not behaved in exactly the manner in which they did…you would have spent your precious, irreplaceable time upon this green and blue globe, slavishly fawning over the sensual and pleasurable appetites that belong to the lower, and quite frankly, animal nature of your being. Yes we have a pleasure center, and yes a good meal, a sexual encounter, a nice pair of shoes, a trip to some romantic getaway, can and does entice. But those of us sensible enough to have chosen the circumstances we think we were “dealt”, we have the gift of priorities, driven by the pain that sprouted up so dramatically in childhood.

There was a time, that appetites ruled my world, buying and having, seducing and partying, getting and winning…but once healing, began to have its way with me, these lower attitudes and appetites drifted away upon the wind, like dust on the breeze.

Once your heart begins to open, nothing else will do.

Once you know the source of your lifes direction, the balance of a life lived in comprehension…then the rudimentary delights of the sensual life no longer have a foothold in your consciousness, or a demand upon your time.

I live now, not for delight…but for Understanding.

May it please the gods, whoever and wherever they are, that I have the willingness to share my small portion of understanding before the reaper comes to carry me beyond the scope of sharing.

My mother, her rages and absences, her judgments and demands, created my desire to explore the topography of depth, or die trying. She pointed my feet toward the horizon, the compass, map, drinking water, and other assorted tools were provided by the great wisdom, warmth, kindnesses, and support of a great many Spiritual Teachers. But only my mother could have rung the starting bell. She and she alone, held the starters gun. Who would I have become without her?

I shutter to imagine, the emptiness of a life, which holds only the promise of goals-achieved, approval-acquired, recognition-sought…in other words, the Outer Life… a plane of life destined to wither, an inconstant upheaval of change and loss. A life not tempered by the fires of a crucible, has only a constant yearning as its companion, a gathering of more and more, with less and less satisfaction. I have escaped that fate due to my Mother’s wrath, and my own will.

I am grateful beyond my capacity to convey.

Until Tomorrow…

R.

Photo courtesy of www.flickr.com

I Am Grateful…essay by Ronni Miller copyright 2009 all rights reserved, reprinting available with author’s permission.