Motherhood

Last Christmas the cousins and aunts again celebrated the annual Bagnola party. The party is almost entirely composed of females and on occasion a privileged male is present to witness the spirits of the opposite sex having a gay old time opening ornaments in an ornament swapping revelry. It was during the ornament swapping that cousin Peggy asked if I missed my mother who had passed away nearly two years before at the age of ninety eight. Being the slow thinker that I am, I gave some bumbling answer the meaning of which even eluded me at the time. This incident must have been ruminating in the back of my mind the past few weeks and has now been brought to the fore, prompted by the passing of the mother of my good friend Erica.
Mothers have a certain aura about them, an invisible emanation that is perceived to be a source of safety, nurturing, love. This is probably most evident to their children. I like to think that this ability to project such an aura derives from a mother’s willing and numinous cooperation with God's creative power. We are so fortunate, those of us who have had the privilege of our mothers being with us until their old age. We've had the good fortune to experience and realize as mature adults this amazing quality inherent in motherhood. This aura does not leave us children (we are always children to our mothers) when our mothers leave to join the Lord. It remains with us and in many ways, some unconscious, we draw upon it to guide us and inspire in us a greater love for our creator.
In a certain sense we never lose our mothers; not just in the Catholic sense of the Communion of Saints, but, we can still experience their presence in a very visceral and palpable way.