Mother musings....

***disclaimer***
My mother's death has left me musing.

A bad mother wishes for good children.
~Spanish proverb

I look at my children and I see so much good in them.

They fuss and worry about little things like the ants in their ant colony....and whether the betta fish is lonely.

They are kind children.

I do not wish for "good children" because I already see so much goodness within them.

I don't believe this necessarily makes me a good mother; but if the proverb above is to be believed, then at least I can rest easy in knowing that I am not a bad mother.

I am a better mother to my children than my mother was to me.

This is not a judgment, but rather it reflects what I believe to be the fulfillment of a hope nearly every mother feels in her heart.

And that great hope, is that we mothers will love, inspire, and equip our children, so that they might achieve even greater things in their own lives. By greater things, I do not mean wealth, status, and fame.

By this, I mean that they will have an increased tenderness for the earth and for one another.

By this, I mean that they will know the freedom of true forgiveness and that they will live forgiving lives.

By this, I mean that they will know what it is to love with a relentless and abiding love.

By this, I mean that their lives will be characterized by mercy and peace.

I think if I were to die today, before the light left my eyes, I could look into the faces of my children and know that these things are already being fulfilled in their lives.

This is what I wish my own mother could have seen before she died.

In spite of all that passed between us, and in spite of all that should have passed but did not.... I think my mother would have found a little joy, and some measure of peace, in knowing that the seeds of goodness which she planted in me, have grown deep and healthy roots.

Reflecting upon both my mother's life and her death, has helped me to better understand what it is that I most desire in my own living and my dieing moments.

In life, I hope to be less afraid and more loving.

And at my moment of physical death, I pray that I might look upon the faces of my loved ones, and that our eyes might become like mirrors, endlessly reflecting the eternal love we have shared between us.