Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday.  A year ago we were just glad to have her still with us after a horrendous fall.  A year later mom has become a vital member of a senior community and has grown to love a life at a different kind of pace with many supports to make her safe and happy.

I have been thinking about mom and how my perspective has changed as I have been a mom, first of young children and now of young adults.  Walking through my own motherhood journey, my view of my mom's own struggles and joys has broadened and a deeper understanding of who she is as I have recognized layers of the wonderful woman I have grown to love has emerged.

Below is a poem about my first memory.  I was three and my mom was teaching me to pray.  This sweet scenario is interspersed with the closing in of her life as mirrored by my own wish to be just like her.

Blessed is the Fruit of Your Womb

                                                                   by Deborah Bussewitz

Wooden floor meets bent knees

as they offer up ritual night prayers,

traces of White Shoulders linger on her neck

delicately defying the staleness of the small space.

Repeat after me she whispers, “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

The small girl of three mimics the sing-song prayer,

a nursery rhyme tracked in memory one line at a time as

two brothers breathe slowly in sleeping cribs that crowd the room.

With the song, comes a glance between lashes--a familiar silhouette--

long fingers laced in prayer, delicate lips,  newly expanding middle.

“I want to be just like you,” the young girl muses,

and the room contracts a little tighter.

Thank you to the Two Writing Teachers community for your promotion of this March Writers' Challenge.  Thank you for giving writers and education a forum for writing and responding to other writers.