Mother’s Day
by Tim Horn
As I'm typing this it is Mother's Day 2020. Flowers are being sent and takeout food is being delivered to all the wonderful women out there who experienced the miracle of childbirth. Families are focusing on that special connection that can't be defined in words. So many women out there have had the indescribable joy of holding their child for the first time. For eight or nine months that child relied on them entirely to be sustained. Then the moment comes. The child feels his or her mother’s heartbeat from the first time from outside the womb.
There are nearly 7.6 billion people on this planet. Each one is unique and beyond that miraculous. When you consider the odds against a life being created you begin to understand the miracle childbirth truly is. That clearly is one of defining moments in anyone’s life. There are other special moments as we progress through life.
It can be that special memory when you meet the one person in your life you realize fills in the gaps you never understood were present in your existence. It could be a quiet moment when seemingly out of the blue you realize what your true purpose on earth is. Today we celebrate defining moments the worldwide. The moment when a life is brought into the world and with that one life a new world is created.
Everything in this life is perspective. For all the joy in the world celebrating a mother's love there is also an incredible sadness for those people who can no longer reach out to that woman who held them tight for the first time. Today, I share that sadness. As a 10-year-old child in a cold office at Camillus Elementary School my father walked through the door and sent my life crashing into a 1000 pieces.
Even to this day that memory remains with me. We look for safety in our lives; we look for the harbor in the storm. On that day all that existed was a storm. In the past several years I have begun to piece together what that event truly demonstrated to me. It is my contention that we live life in fear or love. For the five months after my mother's passing, whenever the phone rang my brother thought that if he picked it up he would learn of someone else dying.
That was the ground my life was built on for the next several years. The tectonic plates were tenuously placed to say the least. There was an incredible sense of loss but time has given me an entirely different perspective.
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Parents are not supposed to have favorites, but somehow I knew that I was my mother's. She had given me the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. She had given me the opportunity to live life without the fear of feeling foolish. She had made my life safe.
All these years later the lessons she taught me have remained and been amplified. The most difficult lesson that she taught me occurred in that cold office. It took many years before the full ramifications of that lesson became clear.
I had to take the pain of that moment and compare it to other aspects of my life. Create a context for the agony I felt. There is no doubt one of the factors that made it so wrenching was the special bond we shared. I do not believe that pain will ever fully disappear.
One of my theories about life is that you draw people to you that have the lessons you need to learn. My mother taught me the lesson of loss. In my over 25 years of working with my clients to improve their mindset and their ability to be happy I've been confronted with others who have shared similar losses. In truth I am an exceptionally good hypnotist. Many times clients have come to me asking to help them forget a loss.
Clearly I cannot do that. All the vagaries of life have taught me that there are only two things in life; gifts and lessons. How precisely can a loss of this magnitude be perceived as a lesson? When you examine the size of a hole this sort of event leaves it also shows the enormity of the love that was shared. I asked my clients if I had the ability to take away that ache but with that I would also take away all the feelings of joy, rapture, and love they had, would they do it?
In the 20 some odd years I have asked that question no one has ever said yes. We have a choice in life to focus on the joys or the sorrows fortune has sent us. It is always a choice. On this Mother's Day sharing these thoughts with you, I focus on the moment an nine-year-old child stood in front of his mother unashamedly and made up a song about how much he loved her. Somehow, wonderfully even as I type this out that memory becomes clearer by the moment and I feel happy.
One of my dearest friends lost her mother this year. I had the good fortune of having met her a few times. Each time left a positive impression. Despite the fact that I did not know her that well, her loss diminishes my wish to celebrate Mother's Day. When that thought goes through my mind, I think about the joy she had in life and how that reflected out to positively affect this person I'm honored to call my friend.
Perspective is everything in life. When those moments of sadness arise, I know I can go back to the nine-year-old child to be happy again.
On this Mother's Day, I wish you the happiest of memories and the ability to integrate them into your life.
