I’m often paralyzed by emotion on this day. Thinking about the stories of the kids lives who somehow bumped into mine and stepped me into this role. Motherhood was never planned out for me, by me. I’ve watched it unfold, at times only a voyeur into the grand orchestration of a passionate God. Attempting so step into the dance when asked. Each kids story is unique, stretching me and challenging me and bringing me to the end of myself time and time again.
I am not the only mother to 2 of my 3 kids. And that fact alone has moved me into a realm of mothering I never knew existed. To understand sacrifice and survival and opportunity and honor. To feel the pull of pure, deep reckless love. And they are not ‘mine’. Not even the one from my body.
It’s a role I don’t take lightly and precisely why this day stirs me up so much.
As much as I believe I am a good mom, I’m terrified at times that I’m not. That I’m not fulfilling the shoes placed before me. That with every raised voice, every stomped foot every slammed door I wonder how far I am from where I should be.
I find myself caught up in deep conversations over photo albums filled with dark faces; memories saturated in earth and sugar cane and cook fires that well up inside them at unexpected times. Questions of why and accusations of intent. Mind games of ‘what if’. Soulful desires to be part of a history that is fading and feels so far away.
It is a constant interpretive dance to music I can’t always hear.
A life dance. A ritual dance. A drumbeat-fox-trot-running-man-mash-up of a dance. A mosh pit of bodies and energy moving in and out of each other. You get stepped on a million times. And you step on everyone else, too. And it’s hot and sweaty and loud and painful.
But, when the music stops, you grieve. You realize that was the most vital part of the whole thing. The constant movement of people bumping into each other. The life of the dance only exists in the middle of it.
And I’ve never been one to ‘sit this one out’, no matter how complex the steps are.
