The Mother's within us

My daughter never knew my Mother.  She had died decades before my daughter was born. On a few occasions during her childhood she showed curiosity or tried to ask me about my mother, what she was like, etc.  That is a very hard kind of question to answer.  While we can give some superficial kinds of descriptors of another person, it is very hard to describe the breadth and depth of another persons personality and energy in the word.

When my daughter turned 11 she started babysitting.  It was an amazing and powerful experience to watch her in action, to see a maternal energy coming out of this one who was so recently a young child herself.  It was a little like when she first started talking and I felt like a curtain was pulled back and I suddenly knew what her mind was like, how she thought.   As I watched her with children there was this odd dejavue experience.   I partly recognized my own parenting style coming through her, but also I would have to say, I also recognized the way my mother was with children coming through her.

Science has now come to understand that from the moment we are born we carry the eggs inside us that will one day be our children.  On some sort of mysterious level those eggs "hear" or experience everything their mothers experience.   There is now in fact evidence of multi-generational trauma that is carried in our DNA.  I would like to believe there is also multi-generational joy and love that is also carried in our DNA.

In the past year or so it occurred to me finally to say to my daughter:  "You remember when you asked me what my mother is like?"  She nodded.  "You already know.  You have already met her in the many ways I carry her in my being and my way of being."  So on this Mother's Day, it does not matter if your Mother is dead or hundreds and hundreds of miles away.   She is with you.

This is my Mother holding my sister with me looking on.

For those of you who know me and my daughter you will 

note that genes do repeat!