a journey in words

God knows every mistake we will ever make. It’s these mistakes that prepare us for our destinies. Without making them ourselves or having them happen against us, we would never build up enough strength to handle the blessings God has for us.

He has given us the grace to endure these wrongs, whether we are the receiver or giver. With that grace comes His forgiveness. How could it not? We are human and He knows that means we are imperfect. We know even better than Him what being an imperfect human feels like… yet forgiveness of others eludes us so often. I believe that is because unlike God, we attach expectations on others based upon our needs and wants from them rather than what God has equipped them with or considering what their true role in our lives are according to the destiny God has for us.

While we find reasons for our own sins to be forgiven, we come up with a litany of reasons why we cannot forgive others. That is part of the human experience and why so many of us and our relationships suffer for so long while we are here. Mercifully by His design, the human experience ends with death and all that is left is the love He placed inside of each of us when we get called Home.

I believe that is why those of us who are left behind when a loved one dies feel a similar Divine release at memorial services. There we can let go of all the wrongs committed against us by the human we are mourning. Those wrongs and failed expectations along with our human shells are buried to be consumed by the earth and transformed into nourishment so life can grow and go on again.

From the start, I have had a complicated relationship with my mother. Pain and anger given and received on both our parts only added to that complexity.

But Truth is undeniable; God chose her to be my mother, for my soul to pass thru and become part of this earthly existence. When that happened, some of the parts of her that I took are some of my favorite parts of myself. I didn’t give her enough credit for that while she was here. Among them I took my mother’s gift of writing, her feminist sensibilities and dry witted sense of humor. I built on these things to make them my own but their foundation was based in her. Without her, there would be no me. I am who I am not in spite of her, but because of her… the good, the bad and the indifferent. Even with all that happened and didn’t happen between us, if given a choice, I would pick her to be the mother for my soul to pass thru and make me human. God knows what He is doing.

We can’t rewrite the past. What is done is done. But we can reinterpret history to feed the goodness that lay before us. That is, if we choose to do so with our gift of Free Will.

That is my choice with my Mommy. Our hard past is now buried. Literally. The other side where I will be reunited with her whole spirit will be awesome. Until then, nothing but love remains.

Yesterday, I stood and declared this over my mother’s grave. I hope it gives both of us the peace we deserve.

Anita P. Smith

My Mommy

March 20, 1951 – November 1, 2021