- Portrait of My Mother, 1995
Today is my mother’s birthday. We have not spoken to each other in five and a half years. I don’t really know what to say, except that each year on her birthday and on Mother’s Day especially, I think about her and wonder if she thinks about me. It is strange not to be part of a community or family, not to be able to have a village to raise your child, to come into the world and not be part of some kind of group or to be cast out of a community. I have sent letters, pictures, and cards to my mother, but she never responds.
I recently read that the Hindu greeting Namaste acknowledges the soul in myself encountering or greeting the soul of the person I am meeting. And so, on her birthday, I say namaste to my mother. If her conscious being cannot acknowledge me as her daughter, I know that her soul will never reject me. Nor will mine reject hers. I keep faith that my mother and I decided before I came to this life that she would behave a certain way for my greater good. Those lessons have been painful and have made my life very lonely, but this medicine was probably designed for me by myself and other wiser beings. And so I accept and acknowledge this gift on your birthday, mom. May your day and your life be blessed.
