Here's the thing: my Mom was a very good Mom. She also had a very, very serious mental illness. I know that there are lots of people for which this is simply not case. It can sometimes be pretty vexing to have one's activities curtailed by another person's phobias, or to try and grow as a person in the company of someone whose illness makes them constantly narcissistic, or to handle the embarassment of being a teenager with a Mom that cannot conform to social norms. These things are tough. I get it. It is also tough to be loved with a love that fiercely transcends rationality, but there are worse things. Like not being loved at all. And, that, not being loved, that was never something I faced.
I get it now. How much work it takes to make a hot breakfast every morning. To have the patience to take a constantly chattering kid on long walks and adventures. To let your kids use your precious art supplies or to be patient as they are constantly ripping the pages out of writing notebooks It takes time to make sure your kids feed the chickens and the goats. Its hard to balance grace and discipline.
My Mom was very far from perfect and there are ways that she was incredibly selfish and cruel and unnecessarily jealous, but she cared for me in ways that now seem excellent and even exemplary.
The best thing about love is the way it blows away perfection. It can blow away so many things. . .seemingly solid things... things proven to be dross really--the perfectly clean house or permed hair or dinner that looks like it came out of the Sunday circulars. Poof. Blown away: reckoned with! Perfect does not stand a chance next to love. Effortless always looks shabby next to faithfulness...
Good always subverts the gloss. When there is nothing else, then and only then, does it becomes perfectly clear that all we can really cling to is our very best--love, stronger than death.
Glorious.
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