Emily’s Birthday

I’ve been sitting here trying to find a good picture of Emily, my daughter, but it turns out I don’t have a good picture of her on this computer.  But in my mind?  In my mind, I have a whole museum of pictures.  Gallery after gallery of framed tableaus:  Pictures of her in her bassinette, at every birthday, and every Christmas, and every 1st day of school.

I also have the non-traditional mind-pictures of long laughy, cry-y conversations, usually on on my bed–usually at night, usually with Ira yelling up from downstairs, “Aren’t you in bed YET??”  And me yelling back, “Pretty soon!”

Once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother, but once your child is an adult the mothering morphs into something different from what it was in the days of diapers and dates and driving lessons.  There are still the long, laughy-cry-y conversations, but they’re over the phone now (and there aren’t so many, if any, cry-y ones anymore.)

Here’s what I believe about being born:

Before you’re born it is decided that you have a mission, and in order to fulfill that mission you are born to certain parents, who are part of your plan (even if you don’t understand why, and would never in a million years pick those parents yourself.)

Everything that happens to you is part of the plan.  The mission inside you is like a computer chip (and it even has speech capabilities if you know how to access them.)

When you are doing things that are in alignment with your mission, you are happy.  When you out of alignment, you suffer.

Your most important job is to discover your mission and fulfill it.

Today is Emily’s birthday.  26 years ago, for whatever reason, her daimon picked me to help carry out her mission.  She was such a fun kid to raise!  And she is still fun, and deep, and sweet.

It was also part of my mission to mother her, I know that.  In mothering her, I healed myself.  In loving her, I learned to love myself.  So in a very real way, she was, and is, my most important teacher.

Happy birthday, Emzabelle.  I love you, sweetie.